


Full Circle

by AspiringArmstrong



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 51,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AspiringArmstrong/pseuds/AspiringArmstrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny is a clone of the Doctor. She stole a ship after her apparent death and partial regeneration and has been traveling the galaxy trying to find her place in the world. She comes across some rubble that turns out to be a Dalek who's been in stasis from the Time War. What will she make of this creature before her? This story will answer some long standing questions about the</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A new companion?

 

Jnny woke up with a start. The sound of metal scraping rock, and the red flashing klaxon sent her twin hearts beating frantically in her ears.

_Ba-da-da-dum-da-dum,_

_Ba-da-da-dum-da-dum,_

It was the heartbeat of a Time Lady, and from what she could tell, the last one in the universe.

Jenny moved to the front of the ship and flipped a few switches to stabilize her spin. Her blue eyes darted across the readouts to see what she hit, and was relieved to find it was only a small collision.

“Alright, Looks like we got some salvage.” Jenny said to herself, tying her blond hair into a ponytail with the rubber band she kept on her wrist. Her hands danced across the controls and tractored the debris into the small cargo bay of the Messaline ship. It felt like centuries ago she died, regenerated, and stole the ship to explore the galaxy. Who needs a box?  

It was a small one man freighter, a single cabin and small cargo bay. The Messalines were in constant war for what seemed to be centuries, when it really only turned out to be a few months. The casualties amounted to the millions, but each side was able to quickly clone new troops that were fully combat capable and ready to go. Her father and companion Donna Noble visited, and the Doctor was inadvertently cloned, which lead to her.

The Doctor hates the military, so of course since she was fully combat capable and literally born with a rifle in her hand, she was rejected by him. Near the end, she was killed, and the Doctor and Donna left. Her being a Time Lady, allowed a partial regeneration. She guesses she was mostly dead, not all dead, or she would have a different face.

“Come on David, Lets see what I got,” She said to herself. She didn’t have anyone else to talk to, so she’s started talking to the ship. It was her blue box, and it took her wherever she wanted. Over the years, she’s grown quite attached to it, even whispering how sexy his throbbing engines are when she’s fixing his warp coils.  David (That’s what she calls her ship)  and her had quite the run.

She mostly hauls cargo from planet to planet, and has set up a decent trade route. When she’s in the black, she mostly hangs out in deep space and enjoys the quiet. She doesn’t like to poke her nose into other people’s business and tends not to wander about, trying to fix everything she comes across.

Jenny walked to the back of her ship. The steel walls was a gunmetal grey and light panels that activated when she approached. She contemplated upgrades, adding a few rooms and expanding the ship. But space fold technology was in it’s infancy, and even though she knew how to make a pseudo-TARDIS, the ramifications could… and most likely would blow up whatever star system she was orbiting at the time.

She opened the cargo bay. It was roughly thirty meters square, and littered with boxes tools, empty containers, and large metal crates. A smile crossed her face when she saw a large pock covered meteor roughly three meters across sitting in the center of the bay. She walked around the meteor, running her fingers over the rock. She was shocked to feel a small amount of heat emitting from it. Shouldn’t it be colder?.

Jenny rummaged through a toolbox that sat on a nearby shelf. Pulling out a handheld scanner, she pointed it at the meteor and took a few readings. Maybe there’s some valuable minerals inside. When the scan was done, she was puzzled at what it told her, there was a metallic core that carried an electric signal.

Jenny rummaged through the toolbox and saw what she needed; a long probe that emitted a high pitched sonic sound. A sonic screwdriver.

“This should work.” She said to herself. With a few adjustments, she pointed the device to the rock and pressed the tiny controls on the familiar rod. a high pitched ‘eeeeeeeeeeeee’ emitted accompanied with a blue light emitting from the tip.

. She smiled to herself at the sound. She knew she looked for any excuse to use the sonic screwdriver because it reminded her of her father.

It only took a moment of sonic bombardment to cause the rock to explode. What was left, Jenny was not expecting. Immediately a wind up hum emitted from it, a menacing mechanical eyestalk raised up and locked at Jenny, who was frozen in terror. A tinny, psycotic electronic voice that sent millions to their deaths, uttered…  

“Exterminate the Doctor!”

Jenny had a moment to react and ducked behind a bulkhead before the laser blasts erupted from the assault arm of the Dalek.. The Dalek was worse for wear being in space for eons. It must have somehow survived the destruction of one of its ships, and floated for millennia, gathering dust and debris to form a crust around it.

Jenny pulled her sidearm, leaned over and aimed at the eyestalk. With two quick shots, the eyestalk and the laser were destroyed. The suction cup arm waved around helplessly.

Jenny poked her head around her cover and saw it was spinning in a circle. the top dome swiveled back and forth while the blasted gun arm limped about helplessly. Looking at the abomination, fear gripped her chest. She’s never seen a Dalek, but she seemed to have almost an irrational hatred for the creature. She grabbed a loose pipe and strode up to the immobile domed creature. It’s head swiveled around as it screamed.

“Damage, Damage, Suffered damage. Exterminate Doctor.”

Without any remorse she began to beat the tin dome, the pipe vibrated with each strike, sending pain through her hands and arms. She screamed in rage as she kicked and pounded on the Dalek, resulting in tiring her out, but doing no additional damage.

“I’m… not the… Doctor!” she screamed as she stabbed a vent that was located at the base of the dome with the pipe.

“You lie, biological scans indicate matching genetic code of the Doctor… must exterminate the Doctor.” the Dalek screamed frantically. Each strike she did, the plunger arm swiveled in that direction, as if trying to touch her.

“NO!” She screamed. “I’m Jenny!” She hated being thought of as her father. She was her own person, and to have a mechanical abomination assume she’s just another face her father wears cut her to the core and enraged her to no end. She was Jenny. She had her own hearts and her own path. She was not the Doctor!  

There was silence from the Dalek, the stalkless dome turned to face her.

“Unable to attack, unable to move, must destroy the Doctor. Initiate self destruct.”

Before she could say anything, everything on her ship powered down. She was dead in the water.

“What did you do to my ship!?” She screamed and began another round of beatings.

“Electro magnetic pulse. Disrupt attempts to jettison Dalek. Self destruct initiated. Powercore will become critical in five minutes.”

“David!” She screamed. “Not David! Stop! I’m not the Doctor! I’m his clone, but I’m not him!”

“Genetic match is perfect, you are the Doctor.” the Dalek said. Jenny had enough. She grabbed her sonic screwdriver and ran behind the Dalek. It took a short sonic burst to unlocked a back panel and examined the wires inside. There was an inspirational flash, as she was able to somehow tap into her father’s knowledge and insight of thirteen lives. As much as she hated the idea, she was the Doctor’s Daughter, and had access to all of his genetic memories.

Reaching into the innards of the Dalek, she felt the green wire. (how can she feel colors?) and yanked with all her might.

“No… stop! You disconnected the reactor. Life.. support failing. You’re killing me.” The Dalek screamed.

“You were going to kill me!” she screamed

“Exterminate! Must kill the Doctor! Attempting to re-route.” She could hear tiny switches inside the Dalek re-routing systems to the generator.

Jenny reached in and yanked another wire.

“I can do this all day.” She said coolly.

“Life Support falling.” The Dalek said with a slow drawl. She could see the lights dim. Part of her was thrilled to watch the Dalek slowly power down. Who knows how many lives it had taken. “It’s getting dark…”

“Good. That’s what you get for trying to destroy my ship you miserable trashcan!” Jenny said.

“Doctor… Doctor… Jenny… I’m… scared! Life support… at three percent… please.”

Jenny ran her fingers over the dome of the Dalek. The hatred she felt, she knew was passed to her by her father, and it sickened her. She wanted her own emotions, not some pre-disposition given to her by a random genetic sample. Was what she was doing right? She knew she could have disabled the self destruct sequence, she could have done so many other things… but she literally ripped this creature’s heart out with her bare hands.

She has heard stories about her father over the years. They say the Doctor is a savior. The Doctor heals. The Doctor never kills. Looking down at the wires in her hands, and hearing the ragged gasps of breath from the disabled Dalek, she knew one thing. The Doctor can… and does kill. She cursed herself as she thrust her hand into the innards of the Dalek. Her fingers ripped wired out and re-plugged them into open ports.

“I’ll reconnect you to basic life support if you can agree that I’m not the Doctor.” Jenny said, her hand hovering over the final plug.  

“You… are not… the … Doctor.” the Dalek said.

Jenny plugged the wire deep within the innards of the Dalek. The power came on with a low hum. She heard a sigh of relief as Jenny spent the next few minutes plugging and unplugging wires while the Dalek stayed silent. Jenny stood up and wiped the oil and grease that was on her hands onto her pants.

“I reconnected your life support, and disabled anything that you can use to try to kill me.” Jenny said. “I’m crazy, what am I going to do with you? I guess I can sell you to a zoo somewhere, or give you over to the authorities and let them dissect you or something. ”

“You are not the Doctor” the Dalek said. “You are the Doctor”  

“You are not the Doctor” the Dalek repeated. ”You are the Doctor”

“The Doctor would let me die. He is a good Dalek.” The Dalek said with a tone of pride. “You are not the Doctor, you let me live. That shows weakness, compassion, sympathy. Emotions that have been proven fatal to non-Daleks. Emotions that have caused extermination!”

“My dad is the most compassionate man in the universe” Jenny said, kicking the Dalek. A loud metallic clang echoed through the cargo bay.

“The Doctor has destroyed millions of Daleks. The Doctor is genocide for the Daleks.” The Dalek said.

“You keep killing everyone else. You are genocide!” Jenny countered.

“You are not Dalek. You kill yourselves, Daleks do not kill Daleks.”

“If you see the Doctor as a Dalek, and you see me as the Doctor, then you should not want to exterminate me as you do not exterminate Dalek!” Jenny screamed. The Dalek seemed to be frozen with that logic.

“I… I…I must consider this.”

Jenny’s head hurt with trying to think Dalek. She admitted to herself the only reason she saved chrome dome was because she knew her father would let it di“e, and the thing she tried so very hard all these years was to distinguish herself as her own person, not an accidental clone of the last known Time Lord.

Do you have a name, Dalek?” Jenny asked. She knew he was crippled, The specs of the Dalek flashed in her mind. She knew every square inch of that monstrosity, just like she knew how Cybermen worked, or how to speak in pheromone; all gifts from her father.

“Designation of this unit is seven, nine, three, omega, alpha, … “

“I’ll call you Foreman.” Jenny said. The name rang familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Designation associated: Foreman”  Dalek Foreman replied.

“I’m going to bed, if you get into trouble I will throw you out of my ship. You did enough damage to David when you let off that EMP pulse. It’s going to take all night for him to recover. BAD DALEK”

“I am a bad Dalek?”  the Dalek Foreman replied. Jenny sighed and headed to the cargo bay, but paused for a moment, as she spied a large yellow caution cone. Grabbing a black permanent marker, she wrote in big letters ‘BAD DALEK’. Storming back to the disabled tank of death, she slammed it onto his head pushed the monstrosity into an empty corner of the cargo bay.

“Don’t you move until I get back!” Jenny screamed, and gave Foreman another swift kick. The last one landed awkwardly, and she stubbed her toe.  She cursed and limped out of the cargo bay. She locking the door behind her. Forman may be able to repair itself, they have nanobots that fix things. She removed enough components that it would take a while. At least long enough for her to get some much needed rest.

She laid down on her bed in what she called ‘the captain’s quarters’ and drifted off to sleep. Where did she get the name Foreman?

 


	2. The Prodigal Dalek

Jenny slept and dreamed of times long past. She could see through the eyes of her father’s past lives and all the knowledge of the Time Lords that has been past down since their creation. She smiled to herself, knowing his new face, the older and wiser one. Not the silly man in a bow tie, or the arrogant one who made her and claimed the name Victorious for a time.. His new face, carried a sadness about it, and a heavy weight. There was a sense that he could go down a very dark path if there was no one to guide him into the light. She hoped his current companion was up for the challenge. She was indeed a mystery.

As Jenny slowly drifted awake, she smiled to herself about her nocturnal musings and compared her life to the one she’s been pulled from. What is her reason? Her father one said he had no reason, he was just a mad man with a box. Was she the same? She was indeed content with her life, but did feel an emptiness around her. Then there was Foreman.She chuckled to herself. Does the machine count as a companion? Is she following in her father’s footsteps by saving the Dalek?

“Jenny.” a mechanical tone woke her from her slumber. She thought of six different ways to dismantle and tear apart the mechanical tank in front of her when it continued to speak.“You are not exterminated. Why do you lay as such? My sensors can detect your life signs. Are you trying to trick… Foreman?”

She opened her eyes and a giant eyestalk was mere inches from her face. That subconscious fear and hatred kicked in momentarily and almost stopped both her hearts. She let out a scream, and instinctively jerked her foot up, connecting with the eyestalk and sending it spinning to the opposite side of the oval shaped monstrosity.

“You scared the crap out of me!” she screamed. The eyestalk rotated back to face her, moved up and down for a moment, as if to shrug. and pulled back almost a foot, out of striking range. The Dalek was learning.

“I am a Dalek, I instill fear amongst the stars. It is to be expected.” Was that a smug tone Foreman gave her?

“How did you get into my room?” Jenny interrogated.

“Through the door.” Dalek Foreman replied with an obvious matter of fact tone. The sheer gal he had set her teeth on edge

“It was locked…” Jenny said cooly. Having a Dalek on board apparently meant no sleep.

“I unlocked it. A simple task. While you were attempting subterfuge of death, I also performed upgrades on your ship.” Dalek Foreman said. It turned the eyestalk side to side, as if it was pleased with itself.

“What did you do to my David!?” Jenny screamed. What was this devious metal creature plotting?

“Upgraded weapons capabilities, Upgraded shield capabilities, Upgraded engine capabilities. Ship designation: David, is now capable of combat. Previous configuration could not outrun the Face of Boe in a bipedal contest of speed.”

Jenny was dumbfounded by the reply, she couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Oh my god! David couldn’t outrun the Face of Boe in a footrace? Oh, that’s a good one! Who knew Daleks had a sense of humor?” She should be too mad at the metallic abomination. If he had altered her ship to optimize it, Foreman seemed like he was actually trying to help, something Daleks were not known for, and it was probably in just as uncomfortable situation as she was. It could be another evil Dalek plot… or her father’s paranoia was creeping into her mind again.

“I do not understand the sounds you make.” Dalek Foreman replied, he backed up slightly, and seemed agitated. The sheer pitifulness of the act almost made Jenny’s heart break. Daleks were an unrelenting death machine, but if they’re not trying to kill you, they almost seem like a small child who’s confused about the world around them and just really.. really scared.

Or it could be an evil Dalek plot.

Jenny sighed.

“Oh Foreman, it’s OK. I’m laughing. It’s a good sound.” Jenny said and patted the dome. Foreman’s eyestalk looked up to her, and she gave him a reassuring smile.

“I assume the weak strike to my armored dome was not an act of retaliation? There was no chance of structural comprimization” Dalek Foreman asked.

“No, Foreman, no. It’s reassurance, to tell you that you’re a good Dalek.”

“I am a good Dalek?” Foreman asked. Jenny gave him a nod. Her strange passenger spun around and left her room, she wondered if the slight increase in speed was a sign he was pleased… or it could be an evil dalek plot.

Jenny walked the halls of her ship with Dalek Foreman beside her as he explained the upgrades and maintenance he’d done. He was quite knowledgeable and she was impressed with the things he did that she had put off out of sheer laziness.  

“So Foreman, Tell me about yourself” Jenny asked, She wanted to know where in the very confusing timeline this Dalek haled from. When her father first met the Daleks on the planet Skarra, they were only able to move on electrical platforms powered by static electricity. She smiled at the memory. Ian and Barbara was there. Silly school teachers who stumbled into the trash yard where her father was hiding out.

Why were they there? They were following someone. She couldn’t quite place the name. But it was her father’s first companion. Someone he loved and cared for deeply.

During the adventures on Skarra, they helped the peaceful Tal race from being destroyed, as the Daleks had the antidote to the radiation poisoning. Eventually, they evolved time travel, space flight, and have moved across the stars like locusts, destroying all with their Xenophobia.

“I am Dalek designated Foreman.” Dalek Foreman answered. Jenny shook her head, her mind was wandering, and the answer Foreman gave her threw her off. She collected her thoughts and continued her conversation to the four foot metallic death machine.

“Do you have any little baby Daleks running around? Where did you grow up? What do you like to do when you’re not ‘exterminate-ing’?” she mimicked. Foreman’s eyestalk met her for a moment, as if to past an almost indignant look at her mock. The picture flashed in her mind as two daleks stood between a baby dalek… and cheered as the tiny rumba of death uttered its’ first exterminate. How proud the fedora wearing father dalek would be as the mother dalek, wearing a sun flower print apron provided cookies in the shape of Sontarans and Cybermen.

“I work on the ship’s maintenance, and I rest between shifts.’ Dalek Foreman answered. They continued down the hall while foreman pointed out the upgraded defense system and explained how he used his nano tech to rebuild the targeting computer using scrap metal.

“The ship’s hull is now .003% thinner, but I have ensured the micro fractures have been welded shut, increasing stability and maneuverability.” Foreman said. So the scrap metal was from the hull of her ship. Jenny felt rage boiling up, but she counted to ten and calmed down. Foreman is helping. it’s not a Dalek plot.  That’s what she needs to keep telling herself. Back to the friendly interrogation… conversation.

“Ok… what was your ship doing before you became encased in space dust?” Jenny asked. She had a suspicion it was destroyed, but with her father’s meddling in most of the Dalek’s affairs, The irrational hatred of the Doctor was passed on through all of time. She guessed that if she can somehow measure the immense hate Foreman had for her father… she could tell what time period he’s from.

“We were in the middle of an attack of Gallifrey. Time Lords destroyed our ship. I was unlucky and not destroyed in the blast. I flew through unknown time fold and ended up with the Doc… Jenny” Foreman said, almost longingly. Jenny got a splitting migraine. Why couldn’t have been during the attack when Amy Pond was captured? Her father and Rory destroyed so many ships then.

“Ok, I know what era you come from now. So what am I going to do with you?” Jenny asked, more to herself.

“I’ve installed temporal capabilities to the ship’s main engine. You can return me to the attack just after my ship was destroyed. I wish to rejoin the battle.” Foreman said matter of factly. Jenny looked down at Foreman who meet her gaze with the emotionless eyestalk.

“You’ll be killed” Jenny said flatly.

“That is acceptable.” Foreman replied.

“You know you lose the time war.” Jenny countered. She didn’t want to think it.

“I have no other purpose.” Foreman said mournfully. Jenny couldn’t stop any more. This was an evil dalek plot!

“You sound like a Cyberman.” Jenny scoffed. “You’re both so alike. You want to destroy everything, and they want to assimilate everyone…”

“I have no other purpose.” Foreman repeated. Jenny didn’t want to send Foreman to his death. If she wanted to kill him, she would have done it in the cargo bay. What kind of life is there for a Dalek? She can’t take him anywhere, anyone who sees him will run in terror.

“What if I gave you another purpose?” Jenny said. Foreman’s eyestalk trained on Jenny’s face. There was silence for a moment, as if the Dalek was thinking it over.

“What other purpose is there?” the Dalek questioned.

“Well my friend, with your upgrades we have all of time and space to figure that out. I’m struggling with the same questions myself.” Jenny said with a cheerful smile. “Why don’t you come with me, and we can explore the galaxy, see the sights and wonders of our universe! and you can see what it’s like not to kill everything in your path.” Foreman paused for a long moment, as if to consider the request.

“I wish to return to my fleet.” Dalek Foreman replied. Jenny sighed. So much for having a Dalek companion. It’s probably for the best. She’ll just zip over to the time war, drop him off and take off. That’s not a place she wanted to be, and there’s so much temporal disturbance, who knew what could happen. The idea of uncertainty did excite her.

“Ok Foreman, lets get you home.” Jenny said defeatedly. She gave Foreman a small pat on the dome and headed down the hall, Foreman trailing behind him.  

She walked to the front of her ship and flipped a few levers and switches. Dalek Foreman instructed her on the steps to work the temporal controls. She engaged the button and slipped into the time stream. She wondered if she’d pass a spinning blue box, but the odds of that were astronomical.

  



	3. Davros

 

Jenny watched the swirling temporal vortex around her ship in fascination. She knew all about the time stream. Her mind can tap into them on an almost intimate level and trace them to their fixed points and parts she could mold like clay. The Gallifreyans were masters of this element and had build up a mighty empire that shone like a beacon hope through all of the continuum of the universe. They were the guardians, philosophers, leaders, ambassadors, and innovators for every sentience in the universe. The Gallifreyans always were and always would be.

Until she… no, her father… destroyed them along with the Dalek race in The Great Time War with the Daleks.

The time war was a tricky place to get to. Her people had locked it away from the rest of the continuity, and only a time lord, or lady, could get there. Or so she thought. Her father had found where Galafre was and has already traveled there, along with several other incarnations of himself.  She can tap into his past and future memories, even more so while in the time stream, simply because she was all places and all times.  

Dalek Foreman was next to her. His eyestalk moved back and forth as her hands danced across the controls. So far, all she was doing was maintaining their stability in the time stream. This ship’s controls were clunky and inelegant, not like the Tardis where you performed almost a waltz with sexy… or sometimes a salsa to activate the controls. She missed her.

Jenny shook the thoughts from her head. She hated when her father’s musings overcame her. It was creepy. She loved David, and he was her one and only, She didn’t need him getting jealous over some dilapidated Tardis that was meant for the scrap heap.

She saw the Dalek staring intently at her control panel and she didn’t like it. “Foreman, I need you to turn your eyeball around.” Susan said. Foreman’s eyestalk looked up at her. It almost looked like a child getting caught in the cookie jar  and feigning innocence.

“I do not understand” The mechanical voice said. She was sure he understood exactly. Foreman was quite child like in many ways, but he was not stupid.

“I’m about to break into a time locked area, If you happen to get aboard your ship and you see how I get in here, You’ll be able to transmit that data to the rest of the Daleks, and I’m not about to have them escape the time war. It’s a fixed point and cannot be changed.” Susan said politely. She locked eyes with Dalek Foreman. There was a moment of tense silence between them. Without a word, the dome cover rotated the eyestalk the other way.  

“Thanks, it won’t take me but a moment.” She said. As her hands danced across the keys, she was able to pilot her ship directly through the time stream barriers and the blue and white waves disappeared to a normal space starfield.

In front of her was the sight of Gallifrey, a large jewel in the black night. The clouds drifted across the planet almost lazily, unknowing of it’s fate. She felt that she was about to weep and her father’s memories flooded her. She thought of his time as a child playing in the fields, His study at the academy, his first love, the fights with the council, the escape, and the longing for home he felt every day. It was right there. She could land and walk the fields. See her mother… or really grandmother. She was so close to a place where she would belong, it pained her.

A flash of red light arced across her field of vision, and snapped her back to reality. She saw millions of ships hanging over the planet, exchanging volleys of super heated plasma, erupting like fireworks every few seconds.

Giant ships exchanged fire as Dalek warships and the Gallifreyan battle cruisers hung  like old zeppelins and creeped across the vast distances. Their evasive maneuvers seemed slow and sluggish from her perspective, but she understood the sheer size of the ships and the actual speed they were going; it was quite an impressive maneuver.

Part of her cried out as she saw one of the Gallifreyan ships erupt in a slow motion explosion. There were over a million people in that one ship and all those lives were wiped out in an instant. Sadly, there was so many more who will fall this day. This never ending day.

There was so much death around her, she felt like screaming, crying, and being sick all at the same time. She was numb all over and couldn't move. She wasn’t even thinking about her passenger. The mechanical tinny voice reminded her and her hearts dropped.

“Yes, I am home, I am here. Exterminate! Exterminate! Calling main fleet, requesting rescue. I have been captured, I have the Doctor!” Foreman screamed, All his internal lights were flashing and he was rocking back and forth in excitement. She could feel the blood lust rise from him

“Foreman!” Susan screamed. The eyestalk trained on Susan as she stood up from the chair. His laser arm targeted her. Her pistol was on the other side of the cockpit, just out of reach.

“I do not answer to that designation! You are the Doctor! You will be given to the Dalek Order!” Dalek Foreman waved the plunger arm and the ship powered down. She was getting tired of this. He’s caused David to shut down twice now.

“I rescued you!” She screamed. “You ungrateful can opener!”

She tried to think of a way out when five more Daleks appeared on the bridge of her ship. It was quite crowded. One of them immediately fired a shot and struck Jenny dead center in her chest. Her body went numb and she slumped into her chair.

“The Doctor knows how to escape the Time War.” Dalek Foreman told his comrades as Jenny lay paralyzed. “We must bring her, and the technology with us.”

Jenny could only watch as one of the Daleks attached their plunger to the main console. She felt David come to life and move in the direction of the biggest craft out there. She was heading to the lead Dalek’s ship and there was nothing she could do about it.

***

Jenny was levitated off the ship into the cool and well lit Dalek flagship. She saw thousands of Daleks working at various stations. Everyone she passed screamed ‘Exterminate the Doctor!’ She glared at Dalek Foreman, who wouldn't even meet her gaze. She should have never let him live. If I get out of this they will all die. She swore to herself. Who cares if she’s acting like her father, she will not forgive them.

Jenny was carried straight to the command center of the giant ship. The bright lights were almost blinding, and the shrills of joy from every passing Dalek made her ears ring. She delved into the psyche of her father, and could find no solution. She just had to wait. The bridge was wide open and flat. The design was truly Dalek, as it allowed room for two Daleks to pass each other no matter where they went. The councils were activated by a series of plates that can be rotated with the plungers. She assumed there had to be some remote connections as well. Her hands yearned for that silly screwdriver… or some explosives, she would love to have lots and lots of explosives.

Her levitation was turned off and she dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Her paralysis was gone, but she didn’t want to let them know that just yet. She lay prone, waiting for what was coming.  

“What do we have here?” Said a rather human sounding voice. Searching her father’s memories can be somewhat disjointed, as it was his future, and past self  that both recognized the man speaking. Her stomach dropped even further.

“Emperor Dalek, I have brought you The Doctor! Exterminate the Doctor! The Doctor’s death shall be your honor!” Foreman quaked and screamed.

Jenny looked up and saw the nobby bottom of a Dalek chassis, and the torso of a disfigured human attached to the top. His skin seemed to have melted some and he held his hands opened in an almost grandiose gesture. The sneer on his face sent a chill down her spine.

“Darvos…” she whispered. It was loud enough for him to hear. He grinned at her as he rolled closer. He leaned down and touched the strands of hair that lay on the floor. His eyes rolled back in almost a euphoric nature.

“Oh… this is indeed special. You are… and are not… the Doctor.” Davros sneered. His bald misshapen head tilted to the side as he examined her. “Yes… Your presence is indeed special…”

Jenny stood up, what was the point in playing dead?

“I’m not the Doctor, I’m Jenny.” she said defiantly. All the encounters with Darvos flooded her. She had… no her father had outsmarted him countless times. He died in the time war when he flew his flagship… this flagship…  into the jaws of the nightmare child during the first … year… of… the… time… war…

Shit.

“I’m going to kill you Foreman!” Jenny shouted. Various Dalek’s eyestalks looked around, but the battered one in the group’s eyestalk dropped down. She was on a doomed vessel around the time where her father will show up and destroy the damn ship. She was not having the best of luck.

“Foreman? Who are you speaking to?” Darvos asked, he looked over to where Jenny was giving Dalek Foreman an icy stare. “Oh… Oh! I understand. Dalek had told me of his subterfuge and winning your confidence. Indeed you are not the Doctor, as he would have seen through such a plot. “ She assumed Foreman was talking to Davros through some radio communication and not audibly, They may be mostly machine, but they think like normal creatures and unlike Cybermen, they have to process information at a standard rate.

“Since I’m not the Doctor, you can just let me go.” Jenny said. She tried to keep as much confidence as she could. Her father would have already had three plans laid out, and seven different ways of escape, and some floozy companion to allow him a distraction. Her first companion betrayed her and tried to kill her… twice. She was petrified. She was no Doctor! Why did she even think she could live up to her father’s mantle!

“Oh, you’re more special than the Doctor. You are exactly what I need.” Darvos said. “One problem the Daleks have, is our genetic code is destabilizing. The blood that flows through your two hearts has proven countless times superior to us, and as the Doctor is unable to give us a sample, You’ll be perfect. You shall usher in a new race of Dalek. One who can think like the Doctor.” Davros said, pointing to his head. “Time lords have a gift. They can see time. Once the Daleks can see the continuums, we can fulfill our plans in a more… efficient rate. Simply stop the evolution of any other species!”

“Imagine, a Dalek who can perform its duties with the creativity of the one individual who has caused us so much pain! Yes, it will be a fitting end for him when we meet next, He will face an army of himself!” Davros erupted in a maniacal laugh. Two Daleks stood next to Jenny and maneuvered her down the hall. She grudgingly followed their lead and looked over the ship as she walked.

She was alive, but was that really a good thing? Will she be used to usher in a race of Daleks who can match wits with her father? How far into the time war did she get dumped in? It was only a matter of time before the nightmare child shows up and Darvos drives his ship into it’s awaiting jaws.

She was doomed.


	4. Savior

Chapter 4

Jenny sat in an empty cell. The Daleks had no need of chairs or furnishings, so Jenny sat on the floor. She looked at the walls and could see the wires and circuits. Her mind raced and decompiled everything she saw. Sadly, the designs were too perfect, and there was no flaw in the holding cell. Even with a sonic device, she wouldn’t be able to escape.

There was a soft whirring sound just outside her cell. She looked up and saw a disheveled Dalek standing outside her cell.

“What do you want... trator?”

“I am no traitor… I am a Dalek.” Dalek Foreman said. There was a long pause, almost to the point of uncomfortable silence. Foreman moved closer and almost whispered. “I… came to see if you are well. Do you need food?”

“I’m about to have my genetic code ripped from me and be the progeny to a new Dalek race… How well do you think I am?”

“Proud?” Dalek Foreman said. Jenny couldn’t believe what she was hearing! “You will bring us out of the darkness. You will free us from these… prisons. You will become our… savior.” There was hope in his voice. She quietly looked at the dilapidated form of Foreman. Various dents burn marks he has acquired from his time in space and from her hand. He was a mess.

“Savior? Me? The Doctor’s daughter is going to be the savior of the Daleks. Davros is insane, and he’s going to get you all killed! Not like I care one bit about what happens to you or your kind. I was trying to be nice, see where it gets me? Locked up and about to be poked, prodded, and then most possibly killed once you’re done with me. My father hates you with all the burning fury of all the stars in the sky. Every chance he gets, he tries… oh does he try to give you a chance… and every time you betray him. I guess I’m no better.”

“Jenny…” Dalek Foreman said. He never got to finish his thought when more Daleks approached. Dalek Foreman moved aside and allowed the pristine chrome Daleks move in and prod Jenny down the hall.

“Dalek proceed to repair bay for new unit.” one of the Daleks said to Foreman. Foreman nodded his eyestalk and proceeded down the hall.

***

She was strapped to a table in her underwear and saw various needles hover over her face. She was doomed, and she knew it. Maybe she could talk to Darvos, she could convince him this was a bad idea.

Darvos rolled in and leered at her like a piece of meat. His decrepit hand stroked her cheek gently while he grinned, showing rotted and yellow teeth.

“If I were a whole man, you would indeed be a trophy worthy of my throne.” Darvos said his fingers trembled as they touched her smooth skin.  

“If you were a whole man, I’d rip it off!” Jenny retorted as she spat in his face. Darvos took his finger and traced the saliva on his cheek and rolled his eyes back in ecstasy.

“I can feel the superior genetics with just a touch. Even with this act of defiance, I can feel your power.. We shall be born anew. With my new Daleks and the Nightmare Child under my control… I will destroy all life in the universe and bring forth a new era of Dal Kind!”

“You’re crazy!” She screamed. but Davros waved her words away and pressed a button. All she could feel was pain. The needles problem everywhere. They took samples of her marrow, spinal fluid, bile. She can feel the sharp pricks bore into her and fill their bellies with everything that made her work. It felt like an eternity of probing before it stopped and she saw Davro’s face hover over her.

“I’ve always suspected the Time lords can see time… not with their brain, but with their eyes.” He said. He leaned forward with an almost spoon shaped device in his hands. “Most Daleks get by with one eye, You’ll be fine. We have many many more years of experiments to run my dear.” His hand moved closer and closer with the scoop as he used his other hand to pry open Jenny’s eyelid. All she could do was scream.

The ship rocked from a massive blast and knocked over one of the Daleks. Davros was able to steady himself, the scoop jerked forward and slashed Jenny across the forehead. She felt warmth trickling down her face and the taste of copper in her mouth. Panic filled Davros’s eyes.

“Give me a report!” Darvos screamed to the Dalek standing at the door.

“The Doctor is near, The Doctor is near!” screamed one of the Daleks. “The T.A.R.D.I.S off the port bow. Sensors also indicate the Nightmare Child approaches.”  

Davros screamed, pushed himself away and wheeled out of the door, leaving Jenny confined to the table. The other Daleks followed Davros as he barked orders to the Daleks.

Another explosion rocked the ship. She would have been thrown into a wall if not for her bindings. She struggled with her restraints, but it was futile. The blood poured out, almost covering her face. She wondered how bad it was. The cut burned, she probably needs stitches, but it was superficial, and nothing major was damaged.  

“Jenny…” said a metallic voice at the door. She looked over and saw Dalek Foreman standing just outside the threshold. He was in a new Dalek unit. Unlike the others He was gold. Davros must have rewarded him with a promotion or an honor to have a different colored unit. Only Dalek Counsel or the Emperor Dalek himself have different colors than the standard workers. The tractor must be so proud.

“Well, I’m glad to know you’re all going to die. Davros is going to fly this ship right into the jaws of the Nightmare Child, and you’ll all be destroyed! It’s just too bad I’m going to end up dying with you.” Jenny said, still struggling with the bindings.

“Jenny…” Dalek Foreman said. he moved forward with his newly grafted laser arm and fired four quick shots. They struck her wrist and ankle bindings and vaporized them. She was free! She looked at Foreman with disbelief. What was he doing?  

“Jenny…” Dalek Foreman whispered, “Run!”

Jenny ran out the door as fast as she could. She remembered where her ship was, even paralyzed, she was able to map the corridors and knew every nook and cranny she saw as she was delivered to the bridge and the operating room.. She wished she had a firearm. Daleks came out of the woodwork and fired on her. She ducked and weaved, dodging blasts. She saw blasts coming from behind her. She had some on her tail too!

The bolts that came from behind her missed and struck the Daleks in front of her! She turned around and Dalek Foreman was trailing behind her. His tiny laser fired nonstop as it struck the eyestalks and laser arms of his fellow Daleks. None are fatal wounds. Daleks do not kill Daleks. It doesn’t mean he couldn’t disable them.

. Not wanting to question small miracles, she picked up the pace, and turned a corner. Her ship was in the docking bay, Daleks were lined up attempting to stop her. Dalek Foreman skillfully disabled all of them. Laser arms and eyestalks dropped  as the guards spun around franticly. She was rather impressed with his accuracy, and wondered if his new power armor had some upgrades.

“Lets go, Foreman!” She screamed and ran to her ship. David lowered the cargo bay door and she ran up the ramp. Dalek Foreman stood on the precipice, he looked at his disabled brothers and back to Jenny. “Foreman.. come-on!” Jenny screamed.

“Good bye, Jenny.” The Dalek said and moved away.

“Damnit!” Jenny screamed. Running to the back of the cargo bay, she grabbed the sonic screwdriver from her toolbox and pointed it at the chassis of the retreating Dalek. The iconic EeEeEeEeE sounded from the glowing green rod, and the golden Dalek paused and began to move backwards.

“No… No… No… I must stay… I am a traitor… I must die for my betrayal! Jenny! Let me go! Please! I am a traitor.” He pleaded franticly. His laser and plunger arms waved frantically as his eyestalk spun full circle.

“Like hell I will!” Jenny screamed. “You’re a traitor to me, you will suffer my wrath. Death is NOTHING compared to what i’m going to do to you!”

She got Dalek Foreman into the ship, closed the hatch and queued up her newly upgraded weapons and blasted a hole in the side of the Emperor Dalek’s flagship. David rocketed out of the hole and into the void of space. There was a massive shape in front of the Davro’s ship.

With a few flips of a switch she rocketed out of the time pocket and into the time stream. She chuckled to herself as she saw the TARDIS close in on Davros’s ship from the rear camera just as the time vortex closed.

“Go kick his ass, Dad” Jenny said to herself.

***

After Jenny set the ship to float in the time field for a while. She went to the cargo bay to check on Foreman. She didn’t know why she dragged him along. It was crazy, stupid, irresponsible, and reckless. Everything her dad would have done.

The golden Dalek slammed himself against the hatch and screamed.

“Let… me… go…” it pleaded. Jenny’s hearts broke watching the torment of her prisoner. His eyestalk swiveled up to her. “Please… just exterminate me… I am trator to Dalek… I am trator to you… I must exterminate myself…”

“No.” Jenny said coldly. “No, you don’t get off that easy.” She was conflicted inside, and needed to lay down. She shut and locked the hatch and went to her quarters.. She knew her ship could explode in the night with a deranged Dalek locked in her cargo hold, but she just didn’t care right now. Her forehead had finally closed up, her whole body ached and was covered in puncture marks, and she was done for the night.

She was almost in an automated state as she showered the blood and filth off her. Her military training kicked in as she stitched up the diagonal seven inch gash on her forehead. It will take a few days for her body to heal, but it will leave a scar from under her right eye, up the bridge of her nose and into her hairline. She never really thought herself as pretty, but now, looking at her face, she was revolted.

She crawled into bed, pulled up the covers and cried into her pillow until she fell asleep.

 

 


	5. Metal of Sontar

Jenny’s dreams were filled with images from her past lives as her father. She felt the pain of losing those close to her, the rage that filled his heart, and the pull of the timeline tugging at her. Countless images from the past to the future danced in her head. Her heart wept as she watched civilizations rise and fall. She read the most beautiful pieces of poetry and heard the most heartwarming music from long ago. She saw horrible cruelty, the savagery of the Daleks, and lack of compassion from the Cybermen as whole civilizations who barely had a chance to begin were snuffed out like a flame in a sea of candles, no one else noticed… but she did.

“Jenny…” said a metallic voice. It startled her awake. Dalek Foreman’s eyestalk was right above her head. She knew he was fully weaponized, and she never got around to disabling him. Her father would be furious if he knew there was a fully weaponized Dalek on her ship. She smiled at the thought. She peeked an eye open and saw the brilliant gold plating of his new body.

“What is it Foreman? I locked you in the cargo bay.” Jenny moaned, she pulled the sheets to cover her self. She was wearing only a thin tank top and her panties. Why was she worried about what a Dalek sees?

“I… am sorry.” Dalek Foreman said. She can not get used to a Dalek apologizing! “I came to alert you to a fleet of Sontaran ships are in pursuit of us.”

The words her prisoner said to her took a moment to sink in. She had to admit that woke her up faster than a strong cup of coffee.

“A FLEET?” Jenny screamed. “Why is a fleet of Sontarans chasing us? HOW is a fleet of Sontarans chasing us! I left us in the time stream!”

“They wish to exterminate us.” Dalek Foreman said matter of factly. Why is he out here? Why was he not locked in the cargo bay where she left him?

“What… did… you… DO!” Jenny screamed and grabbed the eyestalk pulling it close to her face.

“I… I… The engines were malfunctioning, you were in your state of rejuvenation. I followed protocol to fix the engines. They were not designed for long term states inside the time streams.” Dalek Foreman tried to roll back but Jenny’s grip on the eyestalk was firm. Dalek Foreman’s laser gun and plunger arm waved frantically back and forth.

“What… protocol?” Jenny hissed, yanking Foreman forward. “Tell me or I break it off!”

“Drop from warp, scan the parameter to determine hostile presence, and send the standard transmission to all life forms in the area.” Dalek Foreman answered franticly.

“And let me guess what the standard transmission is?”

“Ex...ter..min..ate” Dalek Foreman said pathetically. Jenny’s face drained of all color. The little golden boy dropped her out of warp, and sent a message… threatening to kill everyone. Typical Dalek mentality, which leads to the next question.

“Where did we arrive at?” She asked, but already knew the answer.

“Son...tar?” Foreman said and yanked free from her grip. He wheeled out and sped back to the cargo bay, locking the door behind him. He knew he was in trouble, and she was going to kick his metal can straight into a supernova if they live through this.

Suddenly the ship rocked from an explosion, knocking a furious Jenny out of her bed. She swore to herself and dressed.

***

Jenny’s hands danced across the consol of the ship as she initiated evasive maneuvers. She programed her targeting computers with the newly upgraded weapons to lay cover fire behind her. She didn’t even know what she was shooting at, but it wasn’t good.

“I wish to assist.” Dalek Foreman said, from behind her. She shot a look back and saw he stayed just outside of arm’s reach. Any closer and she would become quite violent.

“You assisted enough. Go roll to the corner and think about what you did!” Jenny snapped as another blast rocked the ship. She almost fell out of her chair this time. There was an indicator light letting her know of an incoming transmission. She flipped the switch to audio only.

“Dalek vessel, this is Sontaran Field Commander Strife of the 20th Battle fleet commanding immediate surrender! You are outnumbered and outgunned. Surrender your ship, your cargo and your life to the great Sontaran empire.”

“Uh, Hi Field Commander Strife. This is Jenny. I’m just a passing merchant ship, I’ve been having radio trouble, I think you may have misinterpreted my broadcast.” Foreman was one dead Dalek.

“We heard it clear as day! The honorable declaration of war upon our home planet from the Daleks.” Said Field Commander Strife, filled with pride. “It’s our sacred duty to meet any declarations of war head on and fully defeat our enemy. I only send this transmission out of courtesy, as you should know who is going to spread your atomized body across the stars.”

“I… Uh, yeah, there’s no Daleks here… and wait, you asked for surrender!

“Merely a formality, you surrender to the destruction of yourself, but not your vessel. We may be able to use it for target practice for the new recruits.”

“That means you would blow up my ship too…” She said dryly.

“Yes, but not right now! Don’t you know the rules of war young lady? There are protocols that must be met, otherwise it gets sloppy, and you won’t find a single sloppy Sontaran in my ranks!” Field Commander Strife said, she can feel the potato head beaming at his cleverness.

“Well Field Commander, I just wanted you to know that my radio was malfunctioning and I just repaired it. What I said was a warning about my cargo. I was hauling some toxic cargo and i have exposed contaminates. It’s not good to get too close to me, if I explode, it will expose your fleet and planet. See? Toxic Contaminates… it could be made to sound like Exterminate.”

“You do realized the false declaration of war, in Sontaran law is punishable by death.” Commander Strife said in a rather serious tone.

“Isn’t a parking violation punishable by death?” Jenny asked. “And you’re going to consider a radio malfunction a false declaration of war?”

“Yes… but that’s beside the point. I’ve already assembled my fleet! Think of the blow to morale if we turn back due to some… misunderstanding or malfunction of whatever. The war has been quite slow the last few years. The cogs of combat are in full swing and the gears of war cannot be stopped!”

“Can’t we just talk this out?” Jenny pleaded. Sontarans were so frustrating! “I just got my ship fixed!”

“Sorry, I am only following protocol by making contact, whether you are a well concealed Dalek or just happened by, I am honor bound to destroy you. I wish you a pleasant death.” Commander Strife said with an upbeat chirp, and disconnected the transmission.

“We must exterminate the Soltaran fleet.” Dalek Foreman chimed in. Jenny looked at him with an icy stair. “It’s protocol.”

“No… you are NEVER to drive EVER you hear me? How soon can we slip into the timestream?”

“Engines are still functioning. Time drive can be activated in twelve minutes.” Dalek Foreman said. “I have run a simulation that can exterminate the fleet, dislodge the orbital body into the primary planet and cause planet wide destruction with a 30% chance of survival”  

Jenny shot him a look filled with unbridled rage.

“Engines will be ready for time jump in 11 minutes.” Foreman said and backed up.

Jenny’s fingers danced across the controls with the speed of a concert pianist. She deftly avoided blasts and shot down entire squadrons of Sontaran short range fighters. She had to keep them busy for twelve minute, and that felt like an eternity, even to a Time Lady

The incoming message indicator flashed and Jenny flipped it on.

“What!” She screamed, “I’m busy!”

“I wanted to extend congratulatory praise to my adversary.” said the fleet commander with his upbeat and cheery voice. “Very rarely have we encountered a single ship so persistent in not dying. I wished commend your tenacity and wish to award you the Metal of Sontar, it’s our highest honor to be given to an enemy who has defeated so many of our men. We shall have a lavish ceremony, followed by your prompt execution by firing squad, and then a desert!”

“You want to give me a medal and shoot me? Why would I accept that!” Screamed Jenny into the intercom.

“Because it’s a great honor, and who wouldn’t want to die like that? Truly it is a great death.” Field Commander Strife said. “If you give me your home address, we can deliver the medal there, and promptly eliminate the inhabitants of that planet.”

“Umm, I’d rather not die at all thank you, but the proceedings sound lovely. Let me get back to you on that!” Jenny replied and cut off the intercom. She turned to Dalek Foreman and his eyestalk moved up and down indicating a nod. With a flip of a few switches, they moved from normal space into the time vortex, leaving the Sontaran fleet behind.

***

“Ok, so tell me again.” Jenny said calmly.

“I will not announce my intention to exterminate, destroy, maim, kill, set fire to, or vaporize whenever entering a new star system, planet, moon, country, city, building, or room.” Dalek Foreman said from the corner. The eyestalk drooped down as he repeated the lines Jenny instructed him to say. Jenny had placed a yellow caution cone on top of his head after writing BAD DALEK across the side.

‘Good, I think you learned your lesson. You may come out now.” she said as if talking to a pre-schooler.

They had come out of the time stream into emptiness. Her scans shown she was in the void between galaxies. there was nothing for millions of lightyears. She was relativistically safe from anything here. Out here, the stars were different, more evenly distributed, as each point of light was in itself it’s own galaxy. She could feel the immense nature of the universe. She wished she could lay on the top of her ship like she used to on the TARDIS and take the wonders of the universe in.

She shook the thought from her head. She had to deal with a homeless Dalek who could be the nicest (or most psychotic) Dalek she’s met. She didn’t know what to do with him. After everything that’s happened, just jettisoning him out of the airlock seemed like a huge waste.

“Jenny... “ Dalek Foreman said. “What do we… I do?”

Jenny was making her bed and paused mid-tuck. She sat down and looked the Dalek directly into the eyestalk. “What do you mean?”

“Our… purpose. My purpose is gone, We... I am outcast, We...I killed others of my kind. I even failed to exterminate us. I… wish not to be exterminated.” Foreman seemed to have a hard time referring to himself in the singular form. Daleks don’t normally have a singular identity. She guessed his time with her was starting to have an affect on his perception of self to the point where his own death is something to be feared. The gold chassis began to quiver

“Foreman… are you trying to tell me the Sontaran accident was your way of trying to kill yourself?” Jenny was horrified at the realization. She stared down the Dalek who’s eyestalk broke her gaze. Dalek Foreman rolled back, spun around, and headed down the small corridor.

Jenny laid in her bed and stared at the grey ceiling and thought. She should follow him. He could blow up the ship. He can sabotage everything she does. He was dangerous and unstable. She needed to do something. Jettison him out of the nearest airlock? She didn’t know what to do.

“Foreman!” Jenny shouted. It only took a minute for Dalek Foreman to roll into the room. Without saying a word. Foreman used the plunger arm to grab the ‘Bad Dalek” hat and placed it on it’s dome, and moved back to the corner.

“Foreman, come here.” Jenny said. Dalek Foreman’s dome rotated around and met her gaze. The eyestalk seemed to droop slightly. That added with the yellow ‘bad dalek’ hat, it looked so pathetic, she wanted to almost cry and give it a big hug.

“Stop moping. You want a purpose, then I’ll give you one. Your purpose is to protect me, talk to me, keep me company and give me insight on our many adventures. Your purpose is to live and prove to everyone in the universe that a Dalek can work with someone without exterminating them.” That was a good purpose. Foreman can be the golden light to prove Daleks can change.

“I… can’t.” Foreman replied, shaking his dome side to side. “It’s not my nature, it’s not what Daleks are. All races are inferior, and must be destroyed.”

“Do you believe I am inferior?” Jenny asked. She took of the hat and set it next to her on the bed. “Do you believe I must be destroyed?” She grabbed Foreman’s Laser arm and held it to her chest.

“Jenny… must not be… exterminated.” Dalek Foreman said, “I am confused, I don’t know what I am. My systems refuse self terminate, I don’t want to, but I know I must.”

“Why are you confused?” Jenny said. She tried to keep her voice calm and soothing. The poor thing was having a complete esoteric crisis right in front of her.

“I don’t know…I don’t know… I don’t know... “ Dalek Foreman repeated in a panic. It started rolling back and forth, like it was losing control of the mechanisms of the machine.

“Foreman!” Jenny shouted, the outburst caught the Dalek’s attention. “Calm down. Lets put it another way then. You’re my prisoner and I’m forcing you to serve me, and you can gather intelligence on me until you can escape.” Foreman paused as if to consider it.

“That… is acceptable, I am a hostage, and to survive, I must obey.” Dalek Foreman said.

“Foreman, Anytime you feel you need to attempt an escape, just tell me first, then I’ll stop you and you can go back to being my prisoner ok? Just don’t hurt yourself, me or the ship in the process.”

“That is acceptable.” Foreman said,

“Ok, go and make sure the ship is in tip top shape. Do not announce the destruction of ANYTHING if we drop out of the time vortex.”  

Foreman left her quarters and began his rounds. Jenny rubbed her temples to push back the migraines. Her hands brushed against the stitches in her face, and she shivered at the thought .

***

“I… raise you… ten chips” Dalek Foreman said. and pushed a stack of chips into the center of the table. Jenny had an empty crate covered with a blanket inside the cargo hold of the ship. She looked at the cards in her hand, and over to the Dalek across from her and frowned.

“I think you’re bluffing.” Jenny grinned and threw her chips in. “I call.”  

They have spent three weeks on the ship, Her supplies were fine, and she didn’t need to really go anywhere. Most of the time she spent looking after Foreman.

“You have three of a kind, My hand consists of a full house. The rules state that I win.” Foreman said, and motioned to the cards turned over in front of him. Without dexterous appendages, he couldn’t hold them. Jenny flipped the cards over and swore.

He had made a few escape attempts already. Most of them were very hillarious. The first one was funny thinking back. He woke her up just an hour after she went to bed and simply said ‘I am attempting escape.’  in which she told him ‘no’. That seemed good enough for both of them and she went back to sleep and he did whatever he did when she slept.

“You cheater, you’re counting the cards!” Jenny exclaimed, throwing the left over deck at the Dalek.

“Is not the purpose of the game to discern the other player’s hands and gamble accordingly to win? I did not alter the cards, nor did I alter the distribution method as they were given to me. Did I do wrong?” Foreman asked. He began to roll away and head in the direction of her bedroom where the Bad Dalek hat was and his time out corner.

Foreman has become increasingly anxious about his interactions with Jenny. Any sign of her frustration could send him spiraling into a full blown panic. Jenny’s dunce cap seems to actually help Foreman cope with his mistake, as he is in effect, being punished, as would he have been on a Dalek ship. The act of discipline means more to him that the physical suffering one would normally attribute to the punishment act.

“No… No.. Foreman, come back! You didn’t do wrong, I was just mad that I lost.” Foreman rolled back and looked at the scattered cards on the floor. Jenny sighed and picked them up. One thing she learned about her new companion was he was very obsessive compulsive. It would agitate him beyond belief if there was clutter. Since he was not dexterous, only having a plunger arm and the laser arm, he was not able to clean things the way he wanted.

“So Foreman. Tell me about yourself.” Jenny asked with a grin.

“I am Dalek, new designation Foreman by captor Jenny. My specialization is engineering. You… already know this.”

“No, no, tell me about your past. where were you born? Where did you learn your talents? I picture a little baby dalek about ⅓ your size and a tiny little plunger saying ‘exterminate’ to some small rodents while Mom and Dad Dalek look on with awe… and the dad Dalek is wearing a Fedora… yes he must wear a fedora. Foreman, Can I get you a Fedora?” Jenny was giggling at the thought, Foreman just stared at her.

“That… is a strange interpretation of the dalek procreation. I was created on the planet Skarra. I came from the birthing labs and added to my device…. what is a Fedora?”

“It’s a hat… but a good hat, not like the Bad Dalek Hat.” Jenny’s train of thought skipped off the rails with the mention of Skarra. “Skarra, has such an old memory to it. There’s radiation… and something else.”

“Yes, that is why we are in the protective shells. Our bodies need the radiation or we will die. The radiation evolved us to the perfect form we are.”

“What… if... “ Jenny contemplated. “You didn’t need the radiation?”

“I… do not understand, we need the radiation from our nuclear core or we die. Are you going to exterminate Dalek Foreman?” he said with an almost hopeful tone. Jenny ignored it

Jenny leapt up from her chair and ran to the front of the ship, she ran some calculations and sent the ship into the time vortex. She wanted her idea to be a surprise to him, if she told him her plan, it may get his little mutated hopes up, and she doesn’t want to dash them. It’s better to check it out herself. Her father does know a cat who can help.

 

 


	6. New New York

The time vortex swirled with green and blue lights. Jenny hummed to herself a song she remembered Bach was working on at one point. He never did write it down, but it was a wonderful melody. She propped her feet on the cockpit as she continued to hum the melody. Foreman rolled next to her and trained his eyestalk on her.

“Can I help you with something?” Jenny asked, mid crescendo..

“What sounds are you reproducing?” Dalek Foreman asked. “I am unable to discern any messages encoded in the varying frequency. Are you attempting a new form of encrypted communications? It will only fail, as we can adapt our computers to translate over time.”

“Oh, I’m humming a song.” Jenny said, she flipped a few switches and adjusted their course. The mechanics feel familiar to her, but strange at the same time, The more she ‘time hops’ it seems the more her father’s connection with her forces itself. The images that used to come only from dreams now slam into her. She woke up a few days ago and cried over the loss of Donna, Rose, and Amy and Rory. Sometimes she felt like a stranger in her own ship, and that feeling infuriates her to no end. “And it does encode messages, but it’s not vocal ones, but emotional ones. The writer of this tune was happy, and we were… my father was celebrating with him  

“It is not unpleasant…” Dalek Foreman stated, his eyestalk was trained on Jenny, in almost an expectant way.

“What, do you want me to sing more?” Jenny asked, the eyestalk moved up and down. Jenny chuckled and began humming a classical tune from earth. Her father had fond memories of Mozart as well, and she remembered some of his compositions intimately. When Jenny finished up, Dalek Foreman remained silent.

“Don’t you have music?” Jenny asked. She always heard a story of a Dalek opera was once attempted, but the audience exterminated the entire troupe before the end of the first act.

“Long ago… are records of such things. Few learn the old records, reprimands are given for those who seek the past. Daleks of old are not the Daleks of now, we cannot learn from them.” Dalek Foreman replied.

“I would love to listen to the story of your people. I know some, but there are parts missing even to a Time Lady.” Susan said. “There’s some confusion about…”

“We have arrived at our destination” Dalek Foreman stated. Jenny looked annoyed at the interruption, but obliged and began to flip the various controls on the ship to drop out of the time stream.

Out of the cabin window was a blue planet covered in water with three massive contents. Humans of the time period discovered this planet long after the original earth had been eaten up by it’s sun once the funds to preserve Earth ran out. Almost every human heard stories about the blue jewel, and once arriving here, decided to christen it with the home they longed for.

“Welcome to New Earth, Foreman. We’re going to New New York to visit a cat!”

 

***

Dalek Foreman’s eyestalk stared at the Face of Boe. His attendants hiding behind the massive head encased in various protein juices.

The Face of Boe stared back at the Dalek.

There was an oppressive silence between the two, each sizing the other up.

The hospital floor was empty except for Foreman, Boe, Jenny, and a cat nun. Everyone on the floor had already fled in terror at the sight of the Golden Dalek that trailed behind her. She figured it’s best they flee in terror, as that behavior is what Foreman is used to. She was proud that he didn’t chase them or even threaten the screaming masses.

Jenny talked to the head sister Caitlyn and checked in for the appointment she scheduled ahead of time.

They arrived in New New York without any trouble and landed near the New New York Hospital. She wanted the Sisters of Platitude to look at Foreman and see if they can do anything for him. Caitlyn gave her a sweet smile and nodded. Jenny looked back at Foreman who inched his way almost up to the glass tank holding the Face of Boe. The eyestalk looked all over the strange creature, she assumed he couldn’t tell exactly what he was, as no one has ever learned the origin of the strange creature.

“Exterminate?” Foreman said, breaking the silence. The Face of Boe gave a wide grin and chuckled.

“Foreman!” Jenny hissed. “NO Exterminate, what did I tell you!” She tried to hide her rage with a plastic smile and pointed to the area in front of her, trying to will the Dalek to listen.

Foreman’s eyestalk looked at Jenny and back at The Face of Boe.

“Sorry…” Foreman said. The apology caused The Face of Boe to chuckle again. Jenny glowered at Foreman while Sister Caitlyn covered the smile on her face. Foreman rolled away from the glass tank, paused to look back, and thought better of it. He rolled forward and stopped directly in front of her.  

“My, your companion is truly unique. Since we spoke, I have consulted the other sisters, and we agree it is worth looking into.” Sister Caitlyn said.

New New York has a hospital that boasts the best medical care in the world. It’s run by a sisterhood of cat-like nuns, and has a sliding scale based on the income of the recipients. They turn no one away and you pay what you can afford. They are impartial and treat anyone who seeks help… even Daleks apparently.

“Foreman, Come with me.” Jenny said. Foreman moved forward a moment, and looked back at The Face of Boe. “You can play with your friend when we’re done, he’s not going anywhere.”  The Face of Boe gave a deep chuckle as the Dalek rolled away.

“The Sisters are rather excited at the opportunity you have presented us.” Caitlyn said, her whiskers twitched with excitement. “You’re… companion is going to give us some excellent data!”

“What… opportunity?” Foreman asked, his eyestalk looked up at Jenny as they walked down the long white hall.

“It’s a surprise.” Jenny smiled and rubbed the dome on his head. She knew he couldn’t feel it, but he seemed responsive to positive reinforcement like this. At the end of the hall was a room named ‘Exam room 3’ “Don’t worry your little metal head over it.”  

Foreman stopped. Jenny turned around and gave Foreman a sweet smile, She was really excited for his surprise.

“What are you doing?” Foreman said in a panic“You’re going to exterminate Foreman! ”

“No!” Jenny exclaimed and took a step forward. This was all wrong! Foreman backed up more and raised his laser arm.

“Jenny is going to exterminate Foreman!” Foreman screamed and backed up again. His plunger arm waved frantically and the laser arm trained on Jenny, Sister Caitlyn and back to Jenny as if he couldn’t decide what to do.

“No! I’m not, I want to help you!” Jenny pleaded and took a step forward. “Please, Just calm down Foreman, it will be all right. I won’t let anyone hurt you!”

“No! You wish to exterminate Foreman!” Foreman set off a blast over their heads, spun around and rolled down the hall at top speed. “Must escape, must escape” he cried over and over as he disappeared down the hall.

“Oh dear,” Sister Caitlyn exclaimed with a worried look. “You didn’t explain to him the visit?”

“No... “ Jenny said dejectedly, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You… thought surprising a Dalek was a good idea?” Sister Caitlyn asked with a chuckle. There was an explosion down the hall. “We should get him before he causes trouble.” Sister Caitlyn chuckled. “There hasn’t been this much excitement since your father visited.”

‘Wasn’t that your order’s fault to begin with?” Jenny said. In order to keep up with their reputation, the Sisters began experimenting on humans so they can learn to cure even the most deadly disease. Her father and his companion found out and put a stop to it.

“Indeed, our predecessors faltered in their faith, but we no longer do inhumane experiments.” Sister Caitlyn grinned. “Lets go find your friend.”

***

Jenny raced down the corridor followed by Sister Caitlyn. Finding Foreman was not as hard as one would think, they only needed to follow the screams of terror. Jenny was worried Foreman was in a complete state of panic and what ever progress she has made with him was thrown out the window. How could she be so stupid?

Jenny could see the charred blast marks on the walls and followed them. Around every corner, she was terrified she would see the skeletons of the vaporized victims the Dalek laser produced. She was astonished the blasts she saw were wide, and missed people entirely.

“Jenny, we need to stop him.” Sister Caitlyn said matter of factly. The sister seemed more amused at the whole thing than upset. “I’ve locked down the floor, He can’t get out.”

“Have everyone go into one room, get as far away from him as they can. He’s not aiming to kill. He’s scared and confused.” Jenny said. Caitlyn nodded and whispered into a small device.

“He’s cornered down the hall, we have security surrounding him.” Caitlyn said.

“Oh god, if they fire on him he’ll kill them all! Can you have them lower their weapons? If they have bare hands, he may not feel as threatened. have them give him a wide berth, don’t let him feel crowded in. He’s in a complete state of panic.” Jenny said as they ran down the hall.

“You sure know a lot about the Dalek psychology. Is he your pet project? I would love to read any papers published on your experiment. If you ever wish to co-author...” Caitlyn said, her eyes twinkled with that remark. Jenny got a hollow feeling in her stomach.

“No…” she interrupted “he’s my friend.”

As they rounded the corner. Twelve security guards formed a semicircle around Foreman. He was backed into a corner, and frantically waved the laser arm around. His normally tinny voice was two octaves higher as he screamed.

“Back away… back away… I will exterminate you…” Foreman screamed. Jenny’s hearts broke to see him in such a panicked state. Caitlyn was right, she should have talked to him about it.

Jenny waltzed up to the semicircle and pushed through the barrier. She put her hands on her hips and planted her feet. She tried to look as furious as she could, and exude authority. Maybe she can calm him down.

“Foreman!” Jenny said as sternly as she could. Both her hearts beat loudly in her ears. He could kill her in a second, but she knew he was terrified. If she can snap him out of his panic... “Foreman, you’re a bad Dalek! Running away without letting me explain! Do I need to send you to the corner again? We may have left the hat in the ship, but I can make another one just as quickly!”

“Jenny… “ Foreman said, an octave lower… he was starting to calm down. “Jenny, you wish to exterminate Foreman. You promised. I must attempt escape if threatened.”

“No! I do not want to exterminate my friend!” Jenny shouted. “You stupid rolling plunger! I came here to help you!”

“This place… will dissect me… study me… and turn my weaknesses against all Daleks. Planet designation primary target for extermination. Must destroy, must destroy… must save Daleks from destruction!” Foreman was beginning to panic again and he let out a strange warble. It stabbed into her head. Was this how Daleks cried? He fired off a shot at one of the security guards. He ducked just in time. The shot was still wide, but only by a few inches.

Jenny strode up to the Dalek and gave him a swift kick. The panicked eyestalk looked up at her and she stared him down. Foreman’s laser arm drooped down, indicating he would not use it again.

“I am only going to say this once. You’re my friend, I care about you and I do not want you exterminated. We are here because I want to help you. I want you to be able to live outside this… hideous contraption that your stupid race decided to warp and twist themselves into using. Get it through your tin head that I want better for you, and you’re stuck with me!” Jenny kept her eyes locked on the Dalek. “And if you fire off one more shot, I will rip that arm RIGHT OFF! DO WE UNDERSTAND!”

Foreman looked at Jenny, and to the crowd behind her, then back at Jenny. The eyestalk nodded an affirmative. It was good enough for her.  

“First, what do you have to say to these people you terrified? You could have killed someone!” Jenny screamed. She was furious. Foreman rolled out from behind her and up to the man on the floor who dodged his blast. The man cowered in fear as Foreman rolled up to him. He looked back at Jenny who gave him a nod.

“I am sorry I tried to exterminate you. I… didn’t intend harm upon you. I aimed away. I assumed you would move. Had I wanted to, your flesh would have been vaporised and I would have rolled over your lifeless corpse with no remorse. Remember this human” Foreman said to the still trembling security officer. His voice went from sincere to almost sinister “Remember… this.”

Jenny better stop Foreman’s ‘apology’ before it turns into another incident. The poor man looked like he would lose control of his bladder at any moment.

“March!” Jenny shouted and pointed down the hall. Sister Caitlyn grinned like a cheshire cat, and lead the way back to the examination room. The closer they approached, the slower Foreman got.

“I’m… scared” Foreman said as he stood in front of the closed door. “What will happen?”

“Foreman” Jenny said, kneeling down to meet him eyestalk level. “We’re here for you. I want to help you. I was wrong to keep why we came a secret. I didn’t want to disappoint you. I wanted the sisters to see if you can be taken off the radiation… maybe even…” She didn’t want to say her other hope. “Foreman, No matter what happens in this room, I'll be here, watching every step, and no matter what happens, i’ll be by your side. You’re my friend.” Jenny placed her hand on the dome and walked through the door. She smiled to herself, hearing the whirr of the motor trailing behind her.

***

The exam took over ten hours. The sisters fluttered about like hummingbirds, examining pieces of the machine, and the globule, one eyed, tentacled essence in the middle that is the core of the Dalek. Jenny watched the nuns like a hawk, and stopped them from deactivating Foreman’s life support, or speech centres. Foreman cooperated and answered questions the best he could. Each answer was met with a ‘fascinating’ from Sister Caitlyn

Jenny took a few skin samples, as Foreman protested being touched by the Sisters. He assured her his biomass regenerates quickly, so he surrendered a small tentacle from the lower right that was not assigned to any systems.

When the busy bees retreated. Jenny slumped into a chair and took a breath.

“What will happen?” Foreman asked. Jenny rubbed her temples and shrugged.

“Who knows. We know Skarra was dosed with radiation, you were mutated. In theory, if we can reconstruct your genetic code, we can turn back the damage. How much of your original DNA that is left, is really up to chance.“

“What will happen?” Foreman asked again.

“We can restore you, remove you from this decrepit prison. Give you back your conscience and make you not want to kill everything on sight. Maybe give you some empathy.” Jenny immediately regretted saying that. Foreman has shown her a great deal of all of the above. That was her father speaking. “Foreman… I’m sorry, I was running off my mouth. You’ve been great for a Dalek.”

“Jenny is right… I am a bad Dalek. I am broken. If I can remove myself as a Dalek, then it shall be a punishment and a shame I will endure. My actions shame and dishonor my kind.” Foreman said solemnly.

Jenny moved over to the open case and gazed at the lump of biomass that controlled the death machine. The large blue eye looked into her’s. She could feel nothing but pity for him, and anger at Davros and the others for turning these people into such monstrosities.

“Foreman… can I… touch you?” Jenny asked. Her hand quivered. She was revolted at the sight of him. The tiny body pulsed and throbbed as fluid was pumped through him.

“I have.. never felt… touch.” Foreman said. Jenny reached her hand out and gently pressed her fingers along the edge of one of the tentacles. the whole machine jerked back for a moment, but moved back where her hand touched. She silently wept, her vision of Foreman blurred.

“Oh Foreman…” She whispered. “You poor poor thing.” She quietly stroked her finger on the revolting skin. Foreman said nothing. It was wrong… He was wrong… What the Daleks are was all wrong.

“Sorry for the wait.” Sister Caitlyn exclaimed as she entered the room. Jenny jerked her hand back, startled by the interruption. “I have fascinating some news.”

Jenny sat down next to Foreman. She rested her hand reassuringly on his dome as they await the results of the tests.

“His biology and genetic structure is degregated beyond repair. We cannot find anything salvageable. I’m sorry, it’s just too far gone. We can’t tell what's mutated and what’s normal.” She said with a chipper upbeat tone. Her personality and constant cheeriness was starting to get on her nerves.

“What if you had a sample of other Daleks? Could you do a comparison?” Jenny asked hopefully. She was sure Caitlyn already thought of this.

“Jenny, dear, we do have samples of Daleks. You’re father send a few of them to us during his one man war against them when he was looking for the companion with child. He wanted us to find some weakness to exploit. There’s nothing physiologically possible we can do.“  Caitlyn replied.

“Davros… what if I can bring you a sample of his DNA?” Jenny said, grasping at straws “He’s in an almost human form.”

“We would need someone non-irradiated and mutated. preferably of Foreman’s lineage.”

“We’ll have it tomorrow!” Jenny jumped up excitedly. “What do you need? Hair? Blood? I’ll bring back a whole arm if i have to!”

“Just a scan with this will do” Caitlyn said and handed her a small device. It was a simplified DNA scanner that could fit into a pocket. Caitlyn must have already anticipated this ahead of time.

Jenny looked at the simple device The key to restoring Foreman, and possibly all Daleks, was held in her hands. A chill ran up her spine when she remembered being strapped to the table on Davros’s ship, the prophecy he told her.

She will be the one to free the Daleks.

  



	7. Skaro

The tiny ship appeared around a large blue planet, reminiscent of Earth. Jenny flipped some switches on the panel and set in a landing corse. Foreman quietly stood vigilant next to her.

“That’s Skaro.” She said with a grin. She knew how she felt seeing Gallifrey and wondered if the same emotions were coursing through his tiny body.

“It has been whispered… of our home. None of us have dared dreamt of viewing it.” Foremans’ tinny voice echoed.

“Why don’t you view it with your natural eye?” Jenny grinned. Without saying another word, air hissed from the tank like structure as panels slide away and the Dalek shell opened up to allow the blob like being be exposed to the open air.

“What… is this?” Foreman said

“It’s your home, where you come from. We need to go down and see when we landed. I may have overshot us a few thousand years one way or another. Her father was not much for note taking, so his memories of exactly when the thousand year war took place was quite fuzzy.

“I... “ Foreman said, then closed the open panels. “Let us go… Jenny”

Without another word, they descended the ship, and targeted a plane just outside the main walled city of Dal.

***

“Shoot!” Jenny kicked the consol. The landing was smooth, but she ran some external scanners to try and place when they were.

“What is wrong… Jenny?” Forman said, resting his plunger arm on hers. Jenny was taken aback by this, Foreman must have saw her shock, as he removed the appendage and rolled back an inch or so. He’s never tried to initiate physical contact before.

She shook the psychological deconstruction out of her head and focused at her task. “We’re too late. The atmosphere is completely irradiated, the thousand war year has started.

“How far back do we go?” Foreman asked.

Jenny pressed some buttons and read the readings on the monitor. It gave her a stellar date, but that made no real difference. “We don’t have a time frame of WHEN the war started. When my dad was here, he never really looked at the actual date. We could be four hundred or nine hundred years in and can’t tell the difference.”

There was an indicator light on her panel that turned red. Foreman immediately spun his dome to the back of the ship and paused, as if looking through the hull.

“Life forms detected… Interrogate… Exterminate…” Foreman spun around and sped down the hall to the airlock. Jenny was still in her pajamas, and swore as she threw on a jacket and some actual pants, slipped on some shoes and ran out to stop Foreman from destroying whoever is outside of the ship.

 

***

  
“Foreman don’t you dare….” Was all she could manage as a red blaster bolt struck the hull next to her head. She ducked just in time only to have Foreman move in front of her and use himself as a shield. The blasts echoed in her ears and she could not hear a word Foreman said. She did her best to bundle herself up behind the metal frame and make herself as small as possible. What ever was being shot at her, his golden frame was invulnerable to it.

“You will submit to interrogation.” Forman said with a commanding voice. Jenny strained to hear past the ringing that flooded her ears. There were no other shots fired. She worried Foreman had vaporized the entire group and caused another ‘incident’.

Peeking out, she saw six large men with purple skin and white hair holding various parts of their body, all with a pained look on their face. Jenny stood up and looked at their attackers. She recognized them as the Thals, it was just her luck!

“Foreman, why did you attack them?” Jenny scolded. Foreman spun around and presented his plunger arm to her.

“They attached incendiary explosive to hull of ship, the damage would have been detrimental to the survival of the ship. I have altered my primary attack to disable, as we needed information from the attackers. Once we have achieved the knowledge we seek, I… shall… exterminate… them… all.”

The last part sent a chill up her spine. It was more than the blind death rage Foreman had against unknown entities. These were ancient enemies of the Dals. Even though Foreman was created millions of years later, the genetic hate must stem deeper than the programming he received. She could see the laser arm quivering, like it took Foreman everything he could to keep from incinerating these people.

“We yield! Your machine has defeated us.” said one of the Thals. They all raised their hands and bowed. “Spare us your fury!”

“We just landed and you try to blow up my ship? Is this a standard welcoming party?” Jenny screamed. “You’re lucky Foreman didn’t just kill the whole lot of you!”

“We thought the Dals set upon us with a new weapon! Our homes are dying, we are starving! Look at us! Look at what they are doing to us!”

“Thals launched the first attack upon Dal.” Foreman screamed and rolled forward. Jenny stepped in front of him to hold him back. He was blind with rage.

“It is a Dal weapon!” the Thal screamed. There was an explosion behind her, Jenny turned her head to see Foreman’s laser arm destroyed, and a group of five Thals rushing out from behind the trees. There was a sharp blow to the back of her head and she experienced blackness.

***

Jenny awoke in a cage surrounded by people. Her head throbbed. She winced as she touched a huge lump at the base of her skull. She promised herself she could let Foreman lead any interrogation he wanted to the bludgeoner.

Quietly she looked around and saw many people dressed in rags, huddled in the corners, using each other for warmth. She counted at least thirty in this cage, and many other cells that lined up in a hall. Children were crying, some screaming for their mothers. She was in an honest to goodness dungeon, something her father had been in many times before, but this was her first one. She chuckled to herself, her father would be in heaven right now. Trapped, the odds against him, everyone’s attention on him.

“Where am I?” Jenny said, more to herself. A tall, old man stepped forward and bowed. He wore the same white hair and purple skin, but his dress in rags and chains was answer enough as to what faction he was with. He was one of the many Dal prisoners.

“We are in the Thal city Karvos. You were picked up by a raiding party who has been probing the Dal city defences. We have all been captured by the Thals from the outlying suburban areas not protected by it’s fortification. The Dal city has been able to hold it’s own for some time, but has cut themselves off from lending aid to us.

Jenny held her head and tried to shake out the cobwebs.

“This… doesn’t make sense… When I… my father visited… the Thals were farmers, artisans.”

“The Thals were never that. Most violent they were, constantly trying to expand their territory. We Dals were the jewel of our world. Art, music, philosophy, we aspire to a life of peace. A ripe fruit, easy to pluck for the Thal.” the old man grimaced. “We are to be interrogated, enslaved, and exterminated like vermin.” he said solemnly.

“Grandfather!” Called a young boy. His face seemed that of a child of twelve or thirteen. His eyes shone a spark of wonderment. She can feel his timeline is very powerful. “Come look!”

Jenny followed the old man to where the young boy sat. The water dispenser had been torn apart, and the pieces reassembled. Jenny calculated it was a frequency modulator. She looked at the cell door, and saw it was an electronic lock that held the door.

“What did you do?” the old man scolded. The young boy looked shamefully at his feet. “My grandson, Vasdor…He tinkers and tends to take apart anything he can get his hands on. His curiosity may now be our deaths, since this was our only water supply.”

“Your grandson’s tinkering can get us out of here!” Jenny said excitedly. She knelt down and rewired a few pieces while Vasdor watched in amazement. “You see, if you do it like this… then there won’t be feedback, and it’s self contained. You can add a variable sequence here so you can quickly use it on other locks…” She harvested a few more parts from the water dispenser and created a makeshift sonic device. It’s more a sonic crowbar than anything.

“Everyone gather your things!” The elderly Dal ordered. The twenty or so people in the cell gathered up the few blankets and what food they had. “I do not know what to call you, but I thank you for the chance to escape!”

“If we do this, We need to get my friend.” Jenny said. The old man nodded, “My name is Jenny, by the way”

“Well Jenny, you were the only one who was deposited in our cell.” The old man said. “They may have killed him.”

“He was… in a battle suit. It was a prototype” Jenny lied. She hated thinking about all the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. It made her head hurt. If the Dals learn of Foreman’s identity, it can break a lot of things, and this planet has so much impact on the whole of the universe, she can sneeze wrong and destroy it.

“If it was technology, they may have him in the upper levels.” the old man said.  Jenny nodded in acknowledgement. She wanted to grab Foreman and get out of here.

“Ok, if we’re getting out of here, we need my friend. You, Vasdor, and one other come with me. We’ll have everyone else ready to go when we come back. A large group will be easily caught. We need to gather weapons, and get Foreman.

Vasdor’s grandfather nodded and motioned one of the larger Dal’s to them. Vasdor operated his electronic lockpick and the cell door clicked opened. The group poured out of the cell, many rushing to the other cages to find missing loved ones.

“Why are there no guards?” Jenny asked, realizing she didn’t know what to call the older man besides her. “What’s your name?”

“The war has reduced their numbers, they are spread quite thin, and it’s Varsavi.”

Jenny led the group down the hall and passed other cells, She was appalled at the sheer number of prisoners. All of them were starving and looked at her with hope-filled eyes. Her gut was doing somersaults. These people were the predecessors of the most genocidal race in history. She wanted to run and leave them to their fate. She felt someone grab her hand and she looked down and saw Vasdor grinning ear to ear. He was a child, How could she blame him for the destruction of quadrillions of lifeforms?

At the end of the hall, she held her hand up to signal them to stop. Peering out, she saw one guard with a rifle approaching her. The door was opened only a crack. As he walked past, she snuck behind him and struck him on the back of the neck. He collapsed without a sound.  She retrieved the rifle and waved them forward.

***

It took them five floors to find Foreman. She about cried at what they had done to him. His main case was still in tact, but they had dismantled his plunger, the rest of the laser arm, and the eyestalk. The pieces were scattered everywhere. There were three scientists using a high powered laser, attempting to breach the hull and she could hear Foreman wailing in pain.

“Jenny!” he cried over and over.

She was about to rush in when her military training kicked in. She assessed the situation and saw there were three guards supervising the dissection. those needed to be taken out first. Holding her rifle steady, she aimed for the shoulder of the first one. she motioned with one hand to the furthest one and the burly Dal nodded with understanding - take him out.

As she trained the sites on the shoulder of the target, she paused for a moment. It was her father that aimed for the shoulder. She wasn’t him. If he had enough stamina, he could still attack. Just because the Doctor does not kill, doesn’t mean she couldn’t. With a slight adjustment she pulled the trigger, and a large hole appeared in the center of the man’s chest.

Dumbfounded, the other guard had barely grabbed his rifle when his headless body slumped to the floor. The larger Dal rushed in and snapped the neck of the third guard, and retrieved the rifle.

Varsavi grabbed the last rifle and aimed it at the scientists. They shook in fear as they looked down the barrels, and surely to their own end.

“What do you want?” One of them said, his voice shaking. He kept looking at the headless guard sprawled in front of him

“Weapons and transportation. You lie, you die.” Jenny said, and shoved the barrel into the chest of the first scientist. “And turn off that laser!”

“Yes, yes, first floor. We have a cache there, and vehicles.” Said the head scientist, he flipped a few switches and the high powered laser was disengaged. Foreman’s mechanical wales ebbed.

“Jenny? Are you there?” Foreman whimpered.

Varsavi tied them up and set them in the center of the room. Jenny turned to check on Foreman. Sadly, he was in pieces. She rubbed his dome tried to comfort him while she thought about what to do. THey need to get his vision and his weapon reattached. She motioned over Vasdor. The young boy walked around the dismembered Dalek and began to mumble to himself. He picked up the laser arm and a few tools and went to work.

“I think it’s working” Vasdor said, holding up the destroyed laser arm. He approached the Dalek and attached some of the exposed wires. There was a slight hum. “You have about six shots before it will explode. Vasdor secured it to the rotors and Foreman was able to move the arm. There was lots of wires sticking out, and it will take Foreman’s Nanobots weeks to repair all the damage.

“Try the eyestalk!” Jenny said, pointing to the frayed wiring attached the the disassembled eyestalk. After about thirty minutes of tinkering and instruction from Foreman, the eyestalk began to function.

“Thank.. you… Jenny” Foreman said. The eyestalk looked around and saw the scientists. “Exterminate! Exterminate!” he screamed, before Jenny could say anything, a bright green blast erupted and skeletonized the three of them. They were dead before they could scream.

“Three shots before it explodes” Vasdor remarked. He was in awe.

“Foreman! We needed them alive!” Jenny screamed. Vasdor looked at the Dalek in amazement. Foreman’s eyestalk trained on Jenny, and silently protested. She felt like a hypocrite. She could see the feet of the two men she killed in cold blood. The scientists tortured him, he had every right to exact revenge. “Just… Lets go.” Jenny said and lead the way out. Foreman followed Vasdor and his grandfather, with the large Dal taking up the rear.

***

The team made their way back down to the dungeon with no trouble. They had gathered the prisoners from all the cells, about two hundred people in all. No alarms had been set off yet but Jenny feared there could be silent ones activated.

The few guards they did run into, Foreman and Jenny got rid of before they could alert anyone else. Foreman let Vasdor know he was able to repair the gun just enough to function without overload, in which the child responded with an unending stream of questions.

They had to be noticed soon. The weapons they recovered from the guards were distributed amongst the rest of the Dal, and they took up fortifying positions around the rest of the unarmed group.

Around the next hall, Foreman waved the stump where his plunger was to get Jenny’s attention.

“Guard barracks in next hall. I detect high energy levels akin to power cells in armaments.” Foreman said. She will have a talk with him later about installing some sort of volume control knob.

Jenny nodded and waved forward all the armed Dals behind her. They gathered close behind as she gave them their instructions.

“We’re going to go in guns blazing and take them all out. If we surprise them, we should have minimal casualties and we’ll be able to arm a lot more.” The Dals nodded and moved into position. She knew what was going to happen, and regretted the fact that they would lose a few people. If luck was on their side, no one will die… but a soldier knows that is never the case.

Susan and Foreman lead the charge into the room and opened fire. Three guards dropped immediately. She did a quick count and saw there were almost 30 in the barracks, some were lying on beds, others in mid dress. Only a few were able to grab their sidearm and fight back before they connected with the deadly red light emitted from the ends of the rifles.

Sadly, those few shots hit their mark and they lost three people. Her heart wrenched when she heard a young boy screaming. She turned around and saw Vasdor’s tear stained face cradling one of the fallen men… his father. Behind them stood his grandfather and what looked to be his mother as well, whose face was buried in  Varsavi’s chest.

The boy sobbed over his father’s still body, as his grandfather tried to console him, the boy threw back the supportive hand. The rest of the Dals gathered up weapons and extra power packs and solemnly distributed them. Jenny knew they had to go two more floors before they can get to the vehicles. No one wanted to state the obvious; what to do with the bodies.

“Foreman…” Vasdor sobbed. The Dalek rolled forward, “Disintegrate them.” Vasdor choked. Foreman looked at Jenny, who nodded. It was terrible, they deserved better, but they could be mourned by the living when they escape, having to carry the remains of three people would slow the already large group. An eerie silence fell over the crowd as Foreman fired three green blasts, the bodies evaporated to bare skeletons. The sight of her husband’s remains drove Vasdor’s mother into a frantic fit. Two other prisoners pulled her away. Quietly the remains were respectfully placed into backpacks, labeled and given to the group.  Varsavi carried his son’s remains himself.

Sobbing, Vasdor clung onto his grandfather. “I will kill them all,” was all he could say. The prisoners proceeded down the final two floors to freedom, killing any guards they come across. Jenny could feel the threads of time snap with each death, possible futures extinguished and the loss of millions of descendants. Time was always fluctuating, always changing, and she was causing those ripples. Was this way her father hates soldiers? Does he feel what happens with people’s deaths like she does? What of those he had sacrificed, could he feel their string as empty, with no descendants and fated to die?

***

Vasdor and his grandfather followed Jenny and Foreman as they made their way down a long hall. The rest of the group stayed back. They were on the first floor in a long grey hallway. Two doors bookended a large picture window that displayed the hanger. Jenny and Foreman inched forward and peered out.

There were transport ships moving in and out of the hangar. Workers were loading supplies and cargo while a control room on the opposite side dictated the work. Jenny was both relieved and furious to see her ship was sitting there, and people moved all over it like ants. They were touching David!

“Ship designation” David is available. I have remote access. I can bring ship designation” David closer, and use automated weapons to exterminate hostiles.” Foreman said.

They originally planned to scout the area, and bring the armed Dals in to take out everyone in the bay. The operators perched in the room above the hanger overlooking the ships couldn’t take out once they started running, and that would alert everyone to the escape. They were going to be the problem.

“We have the asteroid lasers online? The ones we used to mine?” Jenny asked. Foreman nodded his eyestalk. Jenny pointed to the high windows. “How fast can you hit all of them in the room.

“Three seconds.” Foreman replied. It was too long, once they started dropping, it took an instant to push a panic button. The mining laser was powerful, it would only take a quarter of the power to kill someone. Jenny looked around the bay. She saw there were convex spot mirrors positioned on the pillars, allowing drivers to see around the corners of the large cargo piles without killing anyone walking on the other side. She counted the number to sixteen viewable. She ran a few numbers in her head and grinned. It should work.

“Foreman, aim the laser to that mirror and a thirty five degree angle, off center about six degrees left and fourteen up.” Jenny grinned. She could almost feel the Dalek grin as well. “Once you line up the targets with that, fire, and take out the rest of the room. Don’t damage the ships, we’ll need them to escape.”

“Fine tuning calculations… Running simulation.. Exterminate.” Foreman said the last part, in almost a gleeful tone. The ship roared to life, in a split second, the front mounted laser made a slight adjustment and fired.The mining laser struck the convex mirror. When the thick beam reflected, it split in two from the convex shape, and bounced off the rest of the mirrors in a complex pattern, each mirror it struck, split the laser in two, until it refracted into the control room, striking each Thal in the center of their forehead. All six inhabitants collapsed simultaneously.

Stunned by what just happened, the workers were frozen in terror as the ship began it’s defensive strike, firing projectiles and laser shots at the inhabitants. A loud klaxon erupted, signaling an emergency. Someone must have escaped and hit the panic button. Jenny motioned to the rest of her team. They rushed back to the group, and proceeded to move into the hanger. The armed Dals took out the remaining Thals that took refuge in the various vehicles and commandeered as many ships as they could. Jenny made it to her ship, and climbed inside. Foreman was right behind her.

She led the caravan out of the hanger and into the air. Foreman fired indiscriminately on anyone moving below. Not one shot fired missed it’s mark. She felt ill hearing him gleefully scream “Exterminate!” with each shot fired.

She got her first sight of the Thal city. It was surrounded by a huge wall with gun turrets on every post. They all opened fire on the ships. Jenny dodged and weaved through the blasts. Turning the ship around Foreman targeted the turrets and melted them with the mining laser. Before he could disable the last one, one of the cargo ships erupted in flames and crashed into the wall. There were probably fifty people on that ship. Foreman gleefully destroyed the final turret and picked off the scattering Thals that attempted to escape from his wrath.

Jenny led the caravan away from the Thal city, and got on the radio with Varsavi.

“Varsavi, where shall we go?” Jenny asked into the radio. She still needed to know what year it was and how long the war has been going on to calibrate her next time jump.

“Follow me to the capital city.” Varsavi replied with a crackle, and Jenny fell into formation as the remaining ships flead away from the Thal city.

  



	8. Kaalann

It had been only a day since Jenny lead the convoy from the Thal city. They arrived in Dal just before dusk and was met with wide open arms and many praises sung in their honor. The leaders gave her a tour of the city, Foreman leading behind her. He seemed fascinated with every aspect of his ancestral home. She was proud of him, as he didn’t utter a single ‘exterminate’ nor cause any problems. He was on his best behavior. She did wonder if it was more the reverence of being here that explained his behavior.

After the tour and the feast held in their honor, the city elders issued Foreman and her a room in the main building. It was spacious, with one bed and a window overlooking a garden. The architecture was rounded, there seemed to be no sharp corners and a few simple paintings of the landscapes of Skaro.

Foreman took to the window and stared out of it, looking everywhere his eyestalk could see. Jenny took a long needed nap. Her dreams were haunted with visions of pasts and futures. It was too much for her to make out and understand.

She sat upright, drenched in sweat. It had only been a few hours. Jenny grumbled, took a shower, and dressed in some garments she was given by some artisans during her tour. She walked back to a small desk and picked up a notepad and pencil, and wrote one word: Dalek.

Jenny sat in her room with a notepad, writing down page after page of what she could remember about this time. She would refer back to the mind map of the first page, a web of ideas interlinked two to six times. It was too much... too confusing. She screamed in frustration, throwing the notebook, nearly missing Foreman. The projectile slammed a mere foot away from where Foreman has been looking out the window.

“Why are you angered?” Foreman asked, looking down at the notepad. His newly repaired plunger retrieved the pad. He rolled over to Jenny and gave it back to her.

“I’m trying to write down the events that are going to happen. It’s so convoluted thanks to the Time War and my father’s meddling that my brain is spinning! Darvos dies, or he doesn’t die. There’s the Dals or the Kaleds… Kaalan City, where we are, was destroyed, but it wasn’t.

“Emperor Dalek fired upon and almost killed Darvos, claiming rulership. Davros was in stasis. Then we have the whole renegade faction of Daleks.” Jenny paused. “What can you tell me about the renegades?”

Foreman was quiet. His eyestalk lowered and he rolled back and forth.

“No one... not even the Doctor knows…” Foreman said, it was almost choked out.

“Knows what Foreman?” Jenny asked. Foreman looked around, rolled to the open window and scanned somewhere with his eyestalk, and rolled to the front door. She heard the latch secure. After a few more minutes of checking corners he seemed satisfied no one was listening. Foreman rolled in close and she was surprised to know the Daleks can whisper! Foreman spoke in a very hushed tone she could barely hear.

“Kaalann, home of the Dals are the Renegades. The Kaleds reside in Mensvat Esc-Dalek. The Kaleds are Dal… deserters. Darvos secretly tested Dalek technology on Dals before presenting the findings to the Kaled science community.. Very crude static electric base technology. Daleks knew of no other Daleks. The doctor destroyed most of them with his trick with the Thals. Few who remained were saved by the other Daleks, once they re-discovered Kaalann. The city was believed to have been… exterminated.” Foreman recounted in his mechanical whisper. “I… am descended from Kaalan. I am part of the renegade faction. I wished the opportunity to exterminate Davros and the Dalek Emperor, to prove Kaalan are true Daleks.”

Jenny was in shock. Could this explain why Foreman was so different? If he was descended from the older mutated Dals, then the actual humanity may not have been tampered by Davros, but only suppressed. There was a knock on the door, Jenny’s train of thought was de-railed.

“Oh hello,” She said as she opened the door. A young boy looked up and grinned at her. HIs timing couldn’t have been worse “Vasdor, what can I do for you?”

“I wished to show you something!” He said with enthusiasm. Jenny nodded and moved aside. He ran into the hall and she heard squeaking wheels. Vasdor pushed a cart into the room. It carried a mock up of the city and some automated devices running around it.

“I’ve been thinking about the humidity of the forest around here.” The young boy rolled out a shaggy carpet, and shuffled his feet. He ran up to Foreman and touched the Dalek, a sharp blue bolt arced across his finger onto the metal. The Dalek rolled back in surprise. Jenny shook her head no, and Foreman lowered his laser arm. The boy didn’t know how close to death he just was.

“Look, this is a prototype model I worked on for the last three days, it pulls the electricity from the air,” He pointed to the carpet and gave Foreman a wide grin “and these metal tracks…” he pointed to various tracks around a mockup of the city. “We just lay them out around the perimeter, and we use these!” He placed small wheeled blocks onto them with a turret mounted head.”

“I programmed them to attack movement… well I have the program ready, we just need to scale them up a bit. But with the autonomous nature of these, we’ll be able to protect everyone from sneak attacks, and they’ll not have any people inside, so if one gets destroyed, it’s easy to replace!” Foreman rolled forward and looked at the city in silence. Jenny knew Foreman had different tones with his silence. This is one of them she didn’t like. It sent the hairs on the back of her neck on edge. Something was terribly wrong.

Jenny watched the tiny tanks move about the scale model of the city and the color in her face drained. “Where… did you get the design for these?” she asked, her voice quivered.

Vasdor grinned and pointed to Foreman. “I call them Destructive Autonomous Lone Emotionless Killers. or DALEKS for short. I was fascinated with Foreman’s design, so I hope you don’t mind if I modeled them after him, I’m sure the Thals would be terrified seeing more of him running around, even if it’s not the real thing.” Jenny almost gagged. She felt sick looking at the tiny dalek models roll along their paths, bumping into each other and rolling the other way. One of them even got knocked over, and flailed about helplessly until Jenny picked it up and set it back down.

Foreman’s laser arm moved slightly, it was aimed at the boy. Jenny stood in front of it and glared at Foreman. “That’s quite creative!” Jenny lied. She was almost in a panic and had to steady her breathing, anxiety was washing over her like a wave, sucking her into the ocean as she watching the small tanks roll around aimlessly.

The young boy smiled at the praise. “I’m going to show grandpa!” and he rolled up the carpet and wheeled it out of her room and ran down the hall.

“Foreman…” Jenny said. He grasped her hands to her chest, to keep them from shaking, but her legs were weak enough.

“That… is… Darvos.” Foreman answered her unspoken question. Her shaking hand closed the door and locked it. With privacy restored, Jenny collapsed on the ground and had a full blown panic attack.

***

“Exterminate!” Foreman screamed. He was mere inches from Jenny, trying to prod her off the floor and jump into action.

“No!” Jenny screamed back. She was sitting on the floor with her legs pulled up to her chest, her face buried in her knees. “I want to! I want to so bad. I want to grab his throat and snap his neck. Think about it Foreman! Doing that will change everything! The Time Lord council sent my father to stop him! He went back to when Davros submitted his paper on the Daleks and stop the creation of them. That didn’t work! If we kill him now, that won’t happen!”

“Why can’t we?” Foreman pleaded. “I am Dalek because of him… Dynamic Autonomous Lone Emotionless Killer. That.. was me. That is me. That toy, created me! I am disfigured, unable to feel sorrow, remorse, only hate. all I feel is hate!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Jenny screamed. “You killed more people than there are stars! We could save them all!”

“Why?” Foreman asked.

“Do you know as a Time Lady, I can see the events of history? They all bundle together forming knots and folds upon folds. Knowing who he is, I can see what happens if he is killed. The death of Darvos will destroy us... you, me, and everything we know. The Time War, my father, It will save so many people, but destroy so many more. Cybermen will take over more of the galaxy, Sontarans will expand, Without the Daleks… oh god… without the Daleks, our universe could possibly be worse off that it was.” Jenny’s mind filled with all the permutations and possibilities. The realization was too much for her, and she broke down into tears. She would not exist, it would create a paradox unlike the universe has ever seen, and it would be impossible to correct. By killing one child, she would kill everyone with the resulting shift in time.

Looking at Foreman, another sinking in her stomach almost made her vomit. Davros saw Foreman, he fixed Foreman! He learned how to make Daleks by studying Foreman! It was her! She caused it! She may as well have handed the blueprints of the Daleks to him! He figured out their systems enough to repair the eyestalk and the laser, the rest is only imagination.

Then it dawned on her. They know who he is! Davros is 11. Running a few calculations, she was able to judge when she was, and knows she needs to jump back 938 years to before the thousand year war starts.

There was another knock on the door. Jenny took a moment to compose herself and opened the door and saw it was Varsavi.

“The council requests to speak with you.” Varsavi asked.

***

Jenny and Foreman follow Varsavi down the long hall into an open sky. The young boy sat in front of his toy while various men poked and argued amongst themselves. He smiled brightly and answered multitudes of questions. The boy saw Jenny and Foreman, gave them a big grin and waved. Jenny returned the gesture, her insides were churning as a vision of Davros flashed in her mind while she was strapped to the table. Did he remember her? She knew he was thoroughly insane.

“I wished to thank you for saving our people.” Said a rather round and well fed man.

“That’s not a problem” Jenny said. “I was more than happy...’

The floor heaved upwards as Jenny fell. Bits of plaster from the high arched ceiling rained down upon them.

“The Thals are attacking!” Screamed another council member. “No more arguments! We must use it!”

“You are mad! You all are mad!” Vasdor’s grandfather screamed. “I will take no part in this!”

“No part in what?” Jenny asked. She knew what he would say.

“They plan to irradiate the whole planet more.” Versavi explained.

“I detected increased radiation already!” Jenny countered

“Yes, we’ve already launched nuclear weapons at each other, but they are localized. The plan is madness! They will set off explosions in the upper atmosphere, killing all life as we know it!”

“We have taken precautions! Our city will be safe, and free from destruction. Once the Thals are wiped out, we shall rebuild the world!” The council member screamed.

“NO! I will have no part in this. My grandson and I will take our people and to Mensvat Esc!” screamed Varsavi.

The council members huddled around their table and discussed amongst themselves.

‘We only have the ships you came in with to spare. Any who will join you may. You may not get reprieve in Mensvat Esc, that is up to their leaders. We will delay the detonations one day, that should grant enough reprieve. UNLESS the Thals breach our gates, then we will surely be doomed.”

“I can help with that!” Vasdor grinned.

***

Vasdor led Jenny, Foreman, and the rest of the council to a large workshop.

“I have been working with the engineers for my Destructive Autonomous Lone Emotionless Killers design. D.A.L.E.K is much easier to say…” Vasdor grinned. Jenny and Foreman looked at each other. Foreman’s laser arm pointed to Vasdor but Jenny shook her head no and positioned herself in his line of sight while she listened.

“It will take some time to work on an automated system, but we have built a few prototypes. This will allow a person to enter the shell and operate it manually!” The engineers pulled back a door to reveal six Daleks, They looked to be three or four time as big as Foreman, Instead of a plunger arm, there were two laser cannons. The armor was three times as thick, and the eyestalk was shorter.

“We have not set up the metal floors, so these run on battery power.” Vasdor said with pride. He looked to his grandfather and grinned “I left the the designs, the scientists should be able to complete the rest of the work. I know you don’t want me here, and I won’t argue. At least Kaalann can defend herself now.”

“Foreman, we need to go.” Jenny whispered. The eyestalk nodded in agreement. She turned to Varsavi “Lets help you to your ships, we should be leaving too. Thank you for the chance to recuperate.”

Jenny assisted the hundred or so refugees get settled in the stolen Thal ships. She said her goodbyes and gave Vasdor a hug. For a brief moment, she thought of quickly snapping his spine. The child was a mechanical genius, but twisted and depraved. Sadly, he was already showing signs of who he would become. Foreman appeared and boarded her ship. She hadn’t seen him for hours, but nothing exploded and the child was alive. He probably just wanted one last look at his city.

“Grandpa,” Vasdor said with a gleam in his eye. “If we are going to a new city, we should have new names. I think we should hide, as word of our escape will reach all ears. We don’t want the pressure of being heros. Then I can devote my time to study and building!” His Grandfather nodded as they entered the ship “I like Davros…” the boy said with a grin just as the doors closed and sealed. The ships lifted off and flead north to the Dal city Mensvat Esc.

***

“It makes sense now,” Jenny said, as she cued up the time calculations into the ship. “Davros gave them crude designs for Daleks. The occupants fled into the shells to avoid radiation, since the city was not equipped with handling the blast they caused. That’s why Ian, one of the Doctor’s first companions, could get inside one and operate them. The Dals were mutated humanoids, but not as mutated as you.”

Foreman maintained a stoic silence as they jumped into the time stream. Jenny watched the time dial move backwards.

“Not until… Davros came back.” Foreman said mournfully after a few minutes.”Davros mutated Daleks based on his genetic code, and…”

“Well, we’re going to get that sample for you, ok?” Jenny smiled, “Then we’ll see about your future.”

“Jenny…” Foreman said

“By the way,” Jenny interrupted. “Where were u? DId you get a good last look at the city?”

Foreman rolled back, and before Jenny could say anything, Fired a shot that missed by a hair's breadth and dissipated against the window, leaving a scorch mark. Jenny looked shocked

“What… the… hell!” Jenny screamed.

“The test… worked.” Foreman said with a mournful tone. “Alteration had processed through the timeline.”

“What… did… you… do” Jenny growled, her eyes narrowed.

“Davros had the computer opened with his main programming of the DALEK. I… altered… it” Foreman whispered. “A small change, not noticeable. The core program young Davros created was copied into the current Dalek system. Older Daleks would not be able to incorporate it. but newer ones can… I… can.”

Jenny just stared in disbelief at what Foreman was telling her. She waited for him to explain.

“I encoded your genetic signature… Jenny, into the targeting system, and set it to misfire. No matter how many Daleks you may face, none shall be able to target you. It will always miss.”

“My code is the Doctor’s code.” Jenny said cooly. Foreman nodded the eyestalk.

“I designed it to appear as new additions. Future daleks have the doctor’s genetic code for targeting and detection, it would not seem out of place.” Foreman’s eyestalk drooped mournfully. “I must protect Jenny… If I cannot kill Darvos, I can protect Jenny from myself.”

Jenny got out of the chair and threw her arms awkwardly around Foreman and kissed his dome. “Thank you.”

The ship lurched and dropped out of the time stream, the sudden movement flug Jenny against the front console. Swearing loudly, she recovered herself and sat down. Before her was a small pod emitting a distress signal.

  
  



	9. Tham Retes

 

“Oh thank the Face of  Boe you’ve found me!” Said the voice over the intercom. “This is Tham Retes, My ship has been destroyed and I’ve been trying to reach someone, anyone, for ages!” The man crackled over the intercom.

“This is Jenny, Captain of the ship David. I’ll get you tractored in fifteen minutes, hang tight!” Jenny’s hands worked the switches on her panel and navigated her ship next to the pod. It was badly damaged and leaking gases. The tractor beams latched onto the ship and pulled it in.

“I detect no debris from the ship” Foreman said suspiciously.

“Shush, he needs our help. You are one to talk for someone who was adrift.” She chided.

Jenny and Foreman moved to the back cargo bay. She was leary, and had a sidearm attached to her belt. She instructed Foreman to stun if he must fire. He was not enthusiastic about having to turn down the power of his death ray.

The ship was a sphere, six feet across. Big enough to hold one person. Gas erupted from the damaged holes and a loud hiss erupted from the front panels. The ship opened like a clam shell, revealing a man in the center of the seat. Blood was covering his face, and his hand looked twisted

She rushed over and grabbed his good arm. The man whom she assumed was Tham Retes let out a groan as she attempted to hoist him out of the ship, but to no avail.

“Foreman, drop gravity 80 percent.” She shouted. Foreman’s eyestalk nodded, and she felt weightlessness. It was enough to pull him out of the ship and maneuver him to her quarters. She really needs to add a few rooms. Maybe she can pop in on her father one day and have him help her.

“Oh… what angel has fallen from the stars and arrested my soul from purgatory?” Tham said. His eyes fluttered, clear signs of delusion. He must be deluded spouting crap like that.

“Shush, you’re hurt, not dead” She said, and to make the point, pulled one of his dislocated fingers. A loud pop could be heard as the man screamed in pain. She retrieved a finger splint from the first aid box Foreman brought her and wrapped it. Then she repeated the process on the other three fingers.

“More.. like… OUCH! a… demon spawn!” Tham screamed. “Just kill me and get it over with!”

“Not yet…” Jenny said cooly. She maneuvered his left arm, propped her foot on his ribs and yanked as hard as she could. She felt the dislocated shoulder set, and the screaming protests stopped. The arm in her hand was limp, and she let it go. It floated gently down where she tucked the passenger in. Tham Retes was out cold, passed out from the pain of her field dressings. She was never taught  good bedside manners, but he’s alive, and in a stable condition.

Foreman restored the gravity while she sat next to Tham and cleaned the blood off his face. She wondered whose it was, since there were no open wounds. She gazed at his sleeping face, and her hearts stirred. The man struck something inside her, a deep recognition. His face was strong, and jet black hair. There was a thin and carefully groomed goatee that suited him well. His hands were covered in scars from working a very taxing job.

She stayed with him through the night. She would occasionally see Foreman roll across the hall, look in and roll off to do whatever he does at night. She didn’t know when she drifted off to sleep.

***

“DIE YOU HEAPING PILE OF BOLTS!” Screamed a familiar voice.

“EXTERMINATE!” Screamed Foreman.

Jenny bolted awake, Her left arm was numb having fallen asleep holding her head up. Tham was gone, and had wrapped his blanket around her… that was sweet!

“Once I get you! I’ll shoot you into the nearest sun!” Screamed Tham. The ship lurched to the side, and she heard a loud thump. “OUCH! You bastard! Tapped into the ships systems are you?!”

Jenny ran out of the room and looked around. The sound of a laser fight was coming from the cargo bay. Running full speed she burst through the door.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!” She shouted over them.

“A Dalek has infiltrated your ship!” Tham screamed, grabbed her and pulled her behind some metal freight boxes. “It’s only a matter of time until the rest come. This one must be a high ranking Dalek, I’ve never seen a gold one before…”

“Tham… stop.” She ordered in a stern voice.

“Hey, I don’t know where you’re from, but I’m trying to save your pretty little ass right now!” Tham said and fired more shots from behind his cover. Jenny’s pretty little ass had had enough and slapped him.

The sound echoed through the cargo hold, Tham looked confused, holding the bright red handprint on his cheek. She stood up and walked over to Foreman.

“FOREMAN FRONT AND CENTER NOW!” She yelled. The gold Dalek inched out from behind the escape pod. Jenny saw Tham aim his weapon. “If you pull that trigger I will jettison you out of this airlock… do you understand?” Tham sheepishly holstered his weapon.

“Foreman…” She said as sweetly as she could, “Please explain what is going on?”

“I went to check on Jenny… He stole your side arm and fired upon me. I was… concerned of crossfire striking  you, so I retreated to the cargo bay. My settings were still set to restrain… not exterminate.” Foreman said.

“Oh, you’re going to believe that?” Tham said.

“Yes… I am.” Jenny said with a finality. “Foreman is a member of my crew… Technically he is a prisoner of war, but that’s just… too complicated to explain right now. He’s under my orders and he will be respected. If you attempt ANYTHING to him, I will dislocate everything I put back into place.”

Tham just nodded.

“Since you two need to work some of your issues out, I expect you both to clean up your mess. Foreman knows where the tools are. I don’t want to see a single carbon scorch on the walls!” Jenny said. It may be a little unfair to Foreman, but she’d make it up to him. He needed to learn to use his words and not resort to returning fire immediately. Jenny picked up a sonic scrubber and tossed it to Tham, who deftly caught it and gave her a gracious bow. She left the cargo hold and locked the door.

***

Jenny was writing on a notepad in her room when Tham came in and sat on the bed. Putting the pad in her dresser drawer, she turned and gave him a smile.

“Everything is cleaned up. Now, I know there’s a story as to why you’re pallin' around with a Dalek.” Tham said. He winked at her with bright blue eyes. She felt herself blush.

“I'm sure there’s a good story as to why I mopped someone else’s blood off you when you showed up.” Jenny retorted. She heard a small motor stop just outside her room. Foreman was not letting Tham out of his sight.

“There is. It involved broken hearts, lost fortune, and a really angry lizard monster.” Tham gave her a rather cocky grin. Looking at him gave her a slight headache. He must have seen her wince, when he got up and stood behind her. She felt his rough fingers trace her eyebrows and rub her temples.

“I know migraines when I see ’em.” Tham said and continued to rub, she felt like she was falling and drifting. “I think we both have stories to tell. How bout we talk about them over dinner? I know this nice place overlooking a nebula… full of reds and oranges.”

She would like that. She was so lonely, it was nice to have someone else around. And someone so cute. She’d never been to dinner, and only eaten meal bars provided by the ship. The fingers kept their slow and rhythmic pattern. She thought she could hear something, but she was too distracted to focus on it. She could go to dinner with Tham, he was nice… even if he was a little rough around the edges.   

“Jenny…” A mechanical voice shattered what ever paradise she was just in. “The ship is ready, I repaired the damage caused by Tham’s cronopod.”

“What…” Jenny was confused. “Cronopod?”

“Well, I can tell you the whole story over dinner, long story short, it’s an escape pod with time travel capabilities. When jettisoned, it dumps you in a random point. Keeps bad guys from shooting the survivors. When other ships come to retrieve them, they will detect the time signal and be able to pop in and get us. It’s standard 54th century technology. I’m rather surprised you’re ship found it… your ship is… quaint.”

“We were on our way somewhere.” Jenny said. Her mind was clearing up and was able to think clearly. “But we were interrupted by your ship.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. The distress signal broadcasts on all frequencies… Where you heading?” Tham asked. He flashed her a roguish smile.

“Just… off… doing.. things… I'm hungry! Where was this place you said you were taking me?” Jenny blurted out.

“Oh yeah, let me jot down the coordinates.” Tham said and pulled open the desk. He reached for the notepad she was writing on, but she slammed the drawer closed, almost taking out his finger.

“Use this!” she said, grabbing a scrap piece of paper and shoved it into Tham’s hands. Tham shrugged and jotted down six coordinates and passed it back to her. She walked to the front of the ship, plugged the information in and entered the time stream.

“Should take about a half hour to get there” Said a voice behind her. She felt his hands massage her neck and shoulders, easing all the tension she kept there. She needed to learn to take some time off and get this done professionally sometime, it might ease some of her stress. She felt like she was turning to jelly in the chair, her eyes half opened as she watched the consol. Tham said nothing, his fingers did all the talking.

Her half open eyes could see a glowing Dalek eyestalk in the doorway from the reflection of the front window. Silently she saw Foreman turn around and roll down the hallway to the cargo bay. What was his problem?

***

The space station in the 54th century was teaming with extraterrestrial life. It was a main refueling port that hung just outside the nebula’s gravity, but sent ships into the gaseous mass to farm the hydrogen and other raw elements for processing fuel. It’s designation was BXl-352 but the residents called it ‘Crowning Jewel’

The station itself had a hundred levels, most of them involved manufacturing or living quarters, but the rest of them had merchants that sold and traded between ships. It was truly a capitalist’s dream market. The restaurant Tham was taking her to was astonishing. It was truly high class, as the chef’s creations can only be eaten there. The ingredients needed to be fresh and they come from at least seven different planets. Any rock side cafe attempting this would fail, as most of the products would expire by the time the orders got to them.

Against Tham’s protests, Foreman insisted Jenny write a sign that says ‘‘I AM A GOOD DALEK, DO NOT RUN IN FEAR… ASK ME A QUESTION’ and attached a cord to the sign and hung it across him.

“Thank you… Jenny.” Foreman said, and looked at himself in Jenny’s mirror.

“You know that’s going to make people run more… right?” Tham said. Jenny punched his shoulder and shushed him. She patted Foreman’s dome and smiled.

“It looks good on you! Lets go meet the locals!”

They exited the ship and proceeded to the market sector. Jenny never thought of herself as one to shop. Whatever credits she got from salvage would be spent on maintenance and food. She would have to be down to one pair of underwear and a tank top before she considered getting new clothes and even then she would drag her feet to buy more.

Foreman trailed in between Tham and Jenny. Getting past the guards in the docking bay was rather humorous.Their expressions swung from confusion, disturbed, then back to confusion.

“Ummm,” the first guard said, looking at Foreman, His weapon was trained on the Dalek.

“Hello good… male of species, My name is Dalek Foreman… I will not be exterminating anyone today, as you can see I am a Good Dalek. Would you like to ask me a question?” Foreman’s eyestalk looked up expectantly.

“Is this a joke?” Said the guard, looking at Jenny and Tham. “If it is it’s in poor taste.”

“I don’t see any problems here, He plainly said he was a good Dalek.” Jenny said bemusingly.

“Officer, This is a port of call that established an open and non-prejudiced view for all sentient life. If a Dalek wishes to enter, and he clearly states he is not intending any violent actions. The charter established by the commander of the station is that of neutrality. If you are attempting to subvert our entry over personal grudges against a species of intelligence, then you sir, are going to be reported. Either you let us pass, and radio ahead to your fellow officers of the situation here, so we don’t have any gun toting idiot open fire on our friend, or I shall speak to your commanding officer.” Tham said, with a rather puffed out chest. The guard eyed him for a moment and moved his wrist to his mouth and he mumbled something. He seemed to get some confirmation and waved them through.

“Was that acceptable… Jenny?” Foreman asked. Jenny smiled and patted his dome.

“Yes, Just like we practiced. It may take some time, but if you’re nice, people will be nice back, maybe not at first, but you have a lot of preconceived notions to overcome being a Dalek.”

The market corridors were filled with every type of species Jenny could imagine. Most of them wore respirators, as this was a human station, the gravity and atmosphere was mostly earth-like. She could detect some additional gasses in the air, but they would be harmless to humans while allowing a more diverse mix of aliens to explore without respirators.

Jenny wandered  and looked at the various stalls. She almost tripped on Foreman who had stopped and was staring at a little girl in front of him. She was humanoid, with green hair and red eyes. She had dropped a stuffed animal that looked like a six legged herd animal in front of Foreman. She ran and hid behind her mother’s legs. Her mother looked panicked at the sight of Foreman, and was frozen in fear.

“Pick it up and give it to her” Jenny whispered. Foreman looked down at the stuffed animal and grabbed it with the plunger arm. He rolled over to the mother who defiantly hid her daughter. and extended the plunger out, offering the stuffed animal.

“Female of species, your youth left this in my path.” Foreman said

“Umm.. “ the lady looked over at Jenny, and down at the sign on Foreman’s chest. “What does that say?” She asked, Jenny stood next to Foreman and rested her hand on his dome

“It mean he’s a nice Dalek and is not going to hurt anyone.” she said with pride. “He’d love to talk if you wanted to.”

The child’s mother looked conflicted. The plunger arm inched the stuffed animal out. A tiny arm reached out behind her mother and carefully retrieved it and hid back behind the safety of her mother’s legs. A single red eye peered out. Both mother and child were still frozen in fear.

“It’s okay Foreman, we can go.” Jenny said. It wasn’t much but it was still a start. As they walked down the hallway, Jenny heard a tiny voice shout out behind them.

“Thank you!”

“That was nice” Tham said.

“It was very nice.” Jenny agreed. “Did you like that Foreman?”

Foreman’s eyestalk looked up to Jenny. “I… think… so…”

***

“Foreman, I know you don’t eat, but I am starving!” Jenny whined. Tham chuckled at their current predicament.

“I can see why you’re fascinated with him… He’s like a small child sometimes.” Tham commented. “A small child with an almost indestructible shell and lasers... “

The last comment seemed to put the merchant who was clearly unnerved by them on even more edge.

“That… one.” Foreman said, and pointed with his eyestalk. Jenny sighed.

They were at a booth that sold various hats. Foreman whose obsession with the Bad Dalek cone had transmuted to all forms of headwear. He insisted on trying on every hat in the booth, from large brimmed ladies’ hats with ruffles and frills, to mens hats. She was impressed with the variety of inventory. She put on a 19th century cowboy hat that seemed to be coming back into style.

“That… one” Foreman said after looking in the mirror. Jenny saw a red fez and groaned.

“No… not that one.” Jenny cringed. “Anything but that one.” Tham reached over and put it on his head.

“Why not? I think it’s rather…” Tham said, Jenny snatched it from his head and stomped on it. The store owner looked mortified at the mistreatment.

“I’ll pay for it!” Jenny snapped. The merchant seemed satisfied. Jenny looked over the booth one more time and her eyes spied something that put a wide grin on her face.

“I found it! The perfect hat for you!” Jenny said excitedly. She pulled out an old 50’s style brown fedora with a black band and a tiny feather sticking out of the right side. She set the fedora onto Foreman’s dome and he looked into the mirror. “I think you look good!” she said.

Tham burst out laughing. Foreman trained his eyestalk on him and Jenny could swear it was almost a look of condescension.

“Yes…” Foreman said. Jenny paid for the hats and had a crazy idea. She asked the merchant where the human tailors are. After given directions, she rushed two floors up and entered a small shop filled with men’s suits.

“You’d think after fifty centuries.. these would go out of style.” Tham commented, looking at a smart three piece suit.

“Young man, a good suit never goes out of style.” said an old man behind the counter. “Shall I take your measurements?”

“No…” Jenny said, she couldn't’ stop grinning. She pushed Foreman forward, almost reluctantly. “Him!”

The tailor, not batting an eye took out his measuring tape and began to check the dimensions of the Dalek.

“This will take some… interesting alterations…but I can do it” the wizened tailor said.

“I really just wanted to get him a tie to match the fedora” Jenny said ecstatically.

“You know he’s not a doll to dress up.” Tham whispered. “He is a deformed killing machine that happens to have a crush on you.”

“You shut up!” Jenny said through her teeth.

“That would be easy, let's look at some styles for you. How many would you like?” the tailor asked.

“Five, we tend to… be rough with clothes.” Jenny said. The tailor nodded and led the group to a sample table that had various colors and patterns of ties.

Foreman spent another twenty minutes in front of the mirror while the tailor held up tie after tie. Jenny gave her input and they picked a solid white tie, a blue and green cross hatch pattern, a solid red tie, black with white flecks, and a custom made novelty tie that had a Dalek embroidered on the bottom chasing a cyberman with a word bubble that says “Exterminate!” The tailor said he could even add a chip to the tie that can be activated to a pre-recorded message, and they can record Foreman’s line. Foreman was all for the idea, but Jenny decided it was too much. Tham was sitting down laughing himself purple as he wiped at tears.  

It would take the tailor another hour to custom make the ties to fit. Jenny felt like she was going to die of hunger.

“Hey Foreman, you’ll be alright here?” Tham asked. Foreman looked up at him.

“I am all right anywhere.” Foreman responded.

“No… I mean… Jenny and I need to get some food, I wanted to know if you’re ok waiting here till the ties are ready. You have a map to the station already, you know where the restaurant is if we’re still eating when you’re done, meet us there!

“I.. don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jenny said. Tham flashed her a charming smile and gave her a wink.

“Hey, is it ok if the Dalek stay here while you work? He looks fascinated by how you’re making them!”

“It doesn’t bother me none, but I’m no baby sitter. Should he decide to wander off, I’m not stopping him. Just be sure to pick up your order in an hour.”

“Foreman?” Jenny asked. “I’m really nervous about this. If you don’t want us to leave you we’ll stay.”

Foreman looked up at Jenny and over to Tham and back to Jenny. “I will stay until you return.”

Tham got up from the chair, and looped his arm around Jenny’s. “Thanks, Fore! You’re a pal!” Tham banged his hand on top of Foreman’s dome and pulled Jenny out of the shop and into the busy corridor. Jenny felt her stomach sink losing sight of Foreman.

“This is wrong… I need to go back for him!” Jenny said in a panic.

“Hey… I promised you dinner, we need to talk about next steps anyway. I need to get my ship off your ship and then I’m gone!”

“What if he…” Jenny started.

“If he tries anything, the whole station will be on alert and we’ll rush out there to stop whatever antics he gets into. You’re acting like a mother hen. He’s a Dalek, anyone messes with him, you need to worry about them… not him… and he said he turned his death ray down so it won't vaporize and kill. At worst we’ll just find him surrounded by a few dozen unconscious bodies and we’d need to make a break for the ship and escape!”

“You so don’t know how to help.” Jenny said. When did he wrap his arm around her? Jenny was about to say something when they stopped walking and he opened the door in front of a very high class restaurant. He gave a sweeping bow to indicate she should go in first.

  
***

The atmosphere was wonderful. Smells of succulent meats and breads hit her nostrils. The waiter led them to a table and handed them menus. She looked over the different meals and saw no price tags on them. She shrugged it off, she wasn’t paying.

She ordered a dish that sounded delightful. A roasted yerouth steak with beede sprouts and a glarn sauce paired with a martian vermouth. Tham ordered steak and potatoes. The waiter took the menus, and Tham flashed a card from inside his wallet.

“Oh… sir, yes… right away.” the waiter said and rushed off.

“I’ve seen that type of reaction before…” Jenny said suspiciously. “Let me see what’s in your wallet”

Tham smiled…”you got me!” he said and opened his wallet. There was a badge from the time agency, and a slip of white paper that says “I’m Tham Retes and  I’m an idiot’ scrawled with red crayon.

“So… you stole the wallet of a time agent?” Jenny said.

“Stole? Me? No… I AM a time agent. 54th century!” Tham said.

“Isn’t psychic paper use for personal gain against company policy?”

“It’s not hurting the timeline… so I would have to say no. And besides, you rescued a derelict time agent, so this will go on the books as a business expense.  

“And who’s your commanding officer?” Jenny interrogated.

“Commander Biggs.” He replied.

“And his?” Jenny asked.

“Commander Wedges” Tham said with a chuckle. “And he answers to Commander Harkness”

Jenny peered into his eyes, searching out any sign of deceit. She was slightly distracted by them, and her mind began to wander. She jumped at the sound of the water glasses being placed.

“Oh…” Jenny said looking up at the expectant waiter. They gave the man their order. Jenny took a sip of the wine that was placed with her water. It was nice, full bodied, and tasted wonderful.

“So… you’re a time agent, What were you doing on that ship covered in someone else’s blood?” Jenny asked.

“I guess I did say I’d tell you my story if you let me take you to dinner.” Tham said, and flashed her his rogue smile. “Alas, I cannot go back on my word.”

“Well, depending on when it is… I’m either a time agent, or a rogue time agent… Time travel is complicated, but lets say I had a disagreement with someone about his wife and why she was in my bed and not his. I didn’t know she was his wife, because it was before she was even married to him. Her husband is rather possessive, and had put a tracer on her timeline for such an occasion of interference. Well, my interaction was not going to cause the disrupting of space time, and I didn’t know for certain it was his soon to be bride. She was sad and mopey at the bar.”

Jenny stared at him, fascinated.

“Long story short… he punched me, I punched him in the nose, and he sent me back to the agency. I broke out of my cell, and got in lifeboat and shot myself out. He got into a bigger ship and followed me through the time stream. I’ve been hopping timelines for weeks trying to escape him, but the stupid thing has a tracker. It took me forever to find and disable the damn thing.”

“And so now you’re kicked out of the time agency?” Jenny asked.

“It depends on when I show up. As long as I don’t meet myself, and my badge has a sensor, if I’m within the star system, the older of us is notified and we must vacate before we meet. It’s a proven system. It’s not strange to have time agents check in looking older or younger, and I don’t think my boss can tell his younger self what happened, because that’s a paradox violation.” Tham smiled at the servers who brought them their plates

Tham dug into his steak. Jenny tore into her food with just as much vigor. She never learned table manners in the military, and the idea of food for something other than nutrients was still new to her. Each bite sent flavors she’s never dreamt of coursing through her brain. She never wanted to stop eating! She’s going to have to change her finances and get real food on David, and never go back to nutrient bars.

When they finished their food, Tham broke the silence. “Your turn, Why are you running around with a gold plated Dalek who is obsessed with headware and is getting fitted for a tie?”

Jenny took a drink from her third glass of wine chuckled. “I found Foreman in the middle of a meteor. He was completely insane. I almost killed him, but after I disabled his systems, he did something I never heard a Dalek do before. He was scared… scared of death, scared of dying. It was… I don’t know. If you can’t tell, I have a… military background. I could have unplugged and jettisoned him without a second thought… not to mention my father carries no love of Daleks, and hates them with a passion stronger than the burning of a thousand suns.”

“Have you told your father you’re hanging out with Daleks? Is this a way of rebelling against him?” Tham chuckled.

“Oh god, if he found out… I’d be disowned. Maybe I am… I don’t know. I don’t know him too well. He’s off saving people all the time.”

“What does he do?” Tham asked.

“Oh, umm… He’s… a doctor.”

Tham grinned. “I see. I always appreciate the doctors of the world. I knew a great one when I was younger. I always seem to compare my achievements against his and never measure up.”

“I know how you feel, it's like there’s a giant statue and I’m in its shadow.” Jenny looked at her glass, not knowing what to say.

“So how did you rehabilitate the Dalek? And what’s with the hats?” Tham said.

“Well, when I first deactivated him… I took a yellow caution cone we put around the ship in ports, and wrote ‘Bad Dalek’ on it and put him in the corner.” Jenny said. Tham almost choked on his drink when she said it.

“Wait… You put Foreman in time out?”

“Yeah… After some adventures, he seemed to have some respect for me, because he broke me out of confinement, and he led the charge to help me escape a Dalek ship.” Jenny’s voice lowered, remembering how hard it was for Foreman to abandon his people. “He wanted to stay behind and die. He was so conflicted inside, saving me and turning on his own people.”

“I… never thought a Dalek of all things could be capable of such things.” Tham said, almost to himself. Jenny checked her watch, it was over the hour they told Foreman.

“Crap, we need to go!” Jenny said in a panic and stood up which made her head spin. Tham stood and steadied her, and they exited the restaurant. The head waiter thanked them and said he hoped to read the review next week.  

***

Jenny let Tham lead the way down the halls to the elevator and back to the tailor. She kept her ears opened for screams and laser blasts, but heard nothing. Was Foreman still there? She was terrified at the thought of him alone and looking for her.

They entered the store, Jenny was really not doing too well, the wine she drank was going right to her head. Tham continued to be her makeshift crutch. She felt dizzy and good, almost silly.

“Foreman!” She shouted as they entered the store. Foreman was talking to the tailor, who seemed to be not the slightest bit annoyed by the line of questions, mostly ‘what does that do?’ “Foreman! There you are! I was so worried about you!” Jenny said. “Thank you so much for letting him stay here.”

“He was fine, I deal with children all the time, he was no worse.” the tailor shrugged. “The ties are ready.”

Foreman nodded his eyestalk. Tham sat Jenny down in a leather chair and moved to grab the bags. Foreman looked over at Jenny, and did almost a double take.

“Jenny… I’m detecting large amounts of ethyl alcohol in your bloodstream. You’re under attack with subterfuge of poison!” Foreman turned to Tham, his voice dripping with rage. “You did this! You attacked Jenny!”   

“No! No Foreman!” Tham protested “I…”

“Unacceptable! Jenny was entrusted to you! You did this, or you let this happen! Jenny is in danger! Exterminate…Exterminate!” Foreman’s chassis was shaking with rage. She could hear a high pitch whine as his laser arm turned on and was charging.

“Stop! Stop Foreman!” Jenny said. “I did it! I had a few glasses of wine with dinner, it’s okay!”

Foreman looked between Tham whose arms were in the air indicating surrender, and Jenny whose head was starting to hurt.

“Foreman please, I want to have a nice time. We almost made it through the day without you trying to kill someone. Now did you pick out a tie to wear back to the ship?”

Foreman looked back and forth between Tham and Jenny before nodding. “The white one.”

The tailor pulled it out, and expertly tied it around the base of Foreman’s dome. He left it loose, so the knot hung down in a relaxed style.

“You look good Foreman, now lets go back. I want to lay down.”

They made it back to the ship without problem. Tham escorted Jenny to the captain’s bunk and laid her down. She closed her eyes and stroked her temples to help her headache. Foreman was in her room looking at himself in the mirror.

“You’ve never been drunk before, have you?” Tham asked with a chuckle. “You ordered a good 90 proof wine, I thought you knew what you were doing.”

“We don’t drink in the military.” Jenny mumbled.

“What military?” Tham asked.

“Messaline army, warrior class. Batch number 33125.” Jenny said groggily as his fingers traced her hairline and her temples.

“Batch?” Tham said stroking her hair.

“Clone batch…” She muttered… drifting off to sleep.

“Clone of… a doctor?” Tham asked.

“yeah… The Doctor…” and began to snore slightly.

“Interesting.” Tham said with a grin.

****  
  



	10. Breakfast

Jenny’s head was splitting down the middle. There was an annoying sound like nails on a chalkboard disrupting her blissful quiet sleep. A sleep not bombarded by images of time and space and voices. The sound was almost like metal grinding against metal, and it was close.

“I swear to god Foreman, if you pissed off the Sontarans again…” she mumbled. Her pillow was lumpy and uncomfortable too… She tried to adjust it, but it didn’t move. Damn pillow. She sat up groggily, locked her fingers together and slammed them down as hard as she could  onto the offending lump with three well placed whacks.

Tham’s screams of pain sobered her up quickly. He was doubled over, holding his crotch and contorted his face  into what she can only assume be the pain of a thousand deaths. He was sitting cross legged, with her pillow on his lap. His boney shins must have been what she was feeling… it better have been his shins.

“What the hell were you doing?” Jenny demande furiuosly. Why was he in her bed. Why was her head in his lap? Jenny grabbed the sides of her head and sat back down. Tham’s choking coughs were somewhat satisfying, knowing he was in as much pain as she was. “What was that god awful sound?”

“Oh, you ungrateful harpy!” Tham choked. “I fell asleep…”

“That was YOU?” Jenny asked astonished. “It sounded like the hull was being ripped apart by an asteroid, but slowly… Like… like the titanic when it struck the icebergs… that sick wrenching sound that lets everyone know, ‘hey you’re about to die a slow and horrible death!’. “

“Yes… It was me, I snore!” Tham sat up on the bed and steadied himself. His knees were as far apart as he could get them and he took some deep breaths, trying to calm down. “Not like you’re any better! Foreman!”

Foreman rolled into view, wearing his Fedora and white tie. He looked at the two of them and kept silent.

“Oh Foreman, good buddy! You have any sound recordings of Jenny when she sleeps?” Tham asked with a grin.

“Oh I do NOT make that sound!” Jenny said indignantly.

Brwaaaaaannnnzzzzzzz emitted from Foreman. Jenny looked modified.

“Foreman! I do not sound like that!” She said

“Observational recording, last night 22:00 hours.” Foreman said indifferently. Without another word, he spun around and headed back to the cargo bay.

“What’s his problem?” Tham asked, and stretched back down on the bed.

“I don’t know...” Jenny said thoughtfully. She uncrossed her legs, planted her foot on Tham’s shoulder and slid him off her bed. Than gave her a protesting look from the floor. “I don’t want you in my bed.” With that, she grabbed the covers, threw them over her, and then snagged all the pillows. It was only a second before she was back asleep.

***

The sound of laser fire startled her awake. Her head still throbbed from her hangover, but not as much as last time. The sounds of scorching explosions came from the cargo bay… again. She was going to just close it, and jettison them both and be done with it. All she wanted was quiet. Peace and quiet.

Jenny got out of bed and stormed down the hall. She pushed the button to enter the Cargo bay and saw Foreman and Tham standing on other ends of the the bay, both behind stacked up empty canisters. Tham was laughing and shooting out from behind the canisters, and Foreman was behind his own fort returning fire.

She was going to kill both of them.

She was about to start screaming when Tham looked up and saw her, probably realizing the look on her face was not a good one. He smiled and waved.

“Hold up, Foreman!” He said with a chuckle. “Hey babe! You sleep okay?”

“Babe? That’s a big no right there! And I was sleeping perfectly before a firefight broke out in my cargohold.... Again! What is with you two!?”

“Oh, oh! This?” Tham said, holstering his weapon. Foreman came out from behind his cover and rolled next to Tham. “Oh no, Honey.” Jenny shot him a dirty look. Tham just gave her a rogueish smile “... Jenny. We’re only practicing! If I sit around, my skills get rusty, and Foreman here agreed to help me in a live fire combat situation. He assured me his death ray was turned to it’s lowest settings.. He even got me twice!” Tham showed a scorched hole in his shoulder and leg. The skin was blistered underneath but it was superficial. Only a second degree burn.

“And your gun?” Jenny said, crossing her arms and giving them both the universal ‘this woman is pissed’ look.  

“Oh.. um, it doesn’t have a setting… but look!” Tham said. She was frozen at the mere speed he drew his weapon  and fired off a shot that hit Foreman’s dome.

Jenny screamed and rushed over to Foreman. The blast left a scorch mark but his dome was fine. She looked him over and counted sixteen other blasts. If they had his his eyestalk or arms, they could have caused some damage.

Tham stood grinning at how clever he was. The look on his face sent Jenny off the deep end. She turned and slapped Tham but he caught her hand before it struck.

“Hey, the accident this morning is one thing, you don’t want to…” Tham said, before Jenny grabbed his arm with her other hand and proceeded to toss him over her shoulder. He landed with a thump and Jenny proceeded to kick him in the ribs a few times.

“Don’t you ever fire another gun in my ship again! Don’t hurt Foreman! And don’t act better than me in my own SHIP! This is MY world and you are alive because of me! Because I decide so!” Each syllable was driven home by one kick to the ribs or stomach. Tham could only ball up and keep her boots from kicking his face.

Jenny gave him a final kick in the stomach with all her might. The blow landed right in the diaphragm, causing Tham to exhale some blood. He couldn’t speak, just coughed up blood onto her deck.

“Clean this up. You’re restricted to the cargo bay until I say otherwise.” She spun and walked out. “Come on Foreman, leave him. I need to clean you up.”

Foreman rolled over to the hatch where Jenny stood. He paused and moved over to a corner, grabbed a yellow traffic cone and rolled back to the still incapacitated Tham. He gently put the traffic cone on his head, and silently rolled to meet Jenny.

***

“I can’t believe you let him talk you into this!” Jenny said scrubbing Foreman’s chassis. There were scorch marks everywhere! She dipped the sponge in the water bucket and proceeded to scrub him. She could use a sonic device, but she was mad, and wanted to use force on something, and if she took it out on Tham anymore she may kill him.

“Do you like Tham?” Foreman asked. Jenny stopped mid scrub at the question.

“Why would you ask that? He’s kind of a jerk.” She continued scrubbing.

“Do you… like Foreman?” the Dalek asked, Jenny smiled and kept scrubbing.

“Foreman, you haven't asked me to escape for weeks. Could it be you like it here?” Jenny said with a grin and squeezed a sponge of soapy water over his dome.

“I… do not wish to escape. I … like Jenny. You did not answer my question.”

“And what question was that?” Jenny asked. She finished scrubbing one of the blaster scorches when there was a sketch on the intercom.

“Jenny? You there? The door’s locked…” Tham said over the intercom.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m to be addressed as Captain.” Jenny said snidely “And I know you’re locked in, I turned the key. Foreman programed it so that any tampering will open the airlock. Don’t even think about jimmying it!”

“I did?” Foreman asked.

“You will now.” Jenny said with a smile.

Foreman made a noise suspiciously like a chuckle. That was the first time she’s heard any sort of response like that! “Done.”

“I umm, think you broke a few ribs there Doll...er.. Captain” Tham said. “Need medical attention.”

“You know where the medkit is.” Jenny said and turned off the intercom. She started working on another scorch mark and muttered to herself how much of an incompetent idiot Tham was. “Oh, I’m sorry Foreman, You asked me a question.”

“It is… nothing.” Foreman said. He remained silent until Jenny was done, and left without a word. Jenny wondered what was wrong with him.

***

Jenny left Tham locked in the cargo bay for the rest of the night. He quit trying to use the intercom and proceeded to knock in morse code. She stopped listening and went to lay down. Foreman has been busy with systems updates and calibrations. He’s such a busy body. She asked if he wanted to play a game, but he let her know the gravity setting may have been affected when he tampered with it last and he wants to double check on things.

Was he avoiding her?

She lay awake in bed, staring at her ceiling. She was bored, her back was stiff, and her head hurt. She didn’t want to think about that bastard’s massages but she never felt the touch of anyone else before. She did enjoy the attention. How would that work? She let him out and order him to do what he’s done of his own free will the other times? You can’t just tell someone to do that if they don’t want to, and she really did treat him horribly.

She started to feel guilty about kicking Tham’s ass. He was only having fun. Foreman was not hurt. She got so scared when he shot Foreman in the dome that she snapped. Was he horrible for doing that? Tham may be an arrogant bastard, but he was still nice.

Jenny replayed the events over and over in her head and came to two conclusions; he was indeed an arrogant bastard and needed to have his ass kicked, and that she felt bad leaving him locked up like that. He needed to know who was in control. It was her ship and her life. He kept trying to take that away by his acts of chivalry and kindness.

That’s right. She’s in control, and it doesn’t matter what happens, it's her responsibility and no one elses.

With a newfound confidence, she got out of bed, sauntered to the cargo bay and opened the door. Tham sat on one of the smaller empty containers, polishing his sidearm. He glanced up at Jenny and gave her a dejected look.

“What do you want… Captain?” Tham asked.

“I can’t sleep. I just want to say that I feel bad kicking your ass, but it needed to be kicked.” Jenny said with a final tone.

“I guess we can agree on that.” Tham said. “I know sometimes I deserve it and I can’t seem to tell when myself, so I rely on those around me to point out when I need a good beating.”

“Stop that!” Jenny yelled. “Stop that… charming… roguish thing you do!”

Tham grinned and winced as he stood up “You think I’m charming and roguish?”

“No! I just want you to stop trying to be!” Jenny said. She looked into his eyes and felt herself start to drift. There was that connection again, that feeling deep in her chest that she knows this man. “I… I only let you out to say that. If.. you’re not busy, I need some help going to sleep. That thing you did with my shoulders…”

“Say no more, Captain.” Tham grinned and gave her a dramatic sweeping bow. “My fingers are yours to command.”

Jenny laid down on her bed and made room for Tham to sit next to her. He looked around her sparse room for a moment and spied her medicine cabinet. Without asking, he opened it up and pulled out a bottle of lavender lotion she would apply on her hands when they were getting dry. She just raised an eyebrow in question.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Tham grinned. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, so if you have some shorts and a tank top, I can give you a better massage.”

Jenny eyed him suspiciously. He shrugged and grinned. Taking a deep sigh, she opened her top drawer and grabbed the requested garments. Moved to the bathroom and changed. It was better than sleeping in a jumpsuit.

She lay down on her bed and moved her hair to the side to expose the nape of her neck.

“Don’t get any ideas…” She said warningly.

“I never do.” Tham said cooly and applied his hands to the nape of her neck. The sensation sent chills down her spine and released a euphoria she could not describe. His fingers sought out bundles of nerve ending down her spine and back, into her legs and feet and moved back up the other side. Her arms and hands were not saved from the assault on her senses and she was like putty. She felt opened and exposed, slightly anxious and scared, but calm and serene.

Her mind was swimming, and she couldn’t make out what Tham was saying, all she knew was she didn't want him to stop.  

Tham said something, more of a whisper in her ear. She strained to hear it.

“Roll over.” Tham whispered. A twinge of fear shot through her when his soothing voice asked… or commanded again. Clutching a pillow to her chest, she obliged, almost shaking. She kept telling herself she was strong, and she was the captain. She just had to order him to stop.

Tham worked on the hands and arms again, slowly numbing them away. They fell away from the pillow, leaving it defenceless on top of her. His fingers moved over her eyes, eyebrows, following up around her hairline and temples.

Her body was paralyzed, she felt the pillow slide away and the fingers move down her neck and to her upper chest.

“No…” she whispered “I… haven’t..”

“Shhh, Captain ordered a massage, that’s all this is.” Tham said cooly, there was a hint of a smirk in his tone. His fingers ran down to her stomach, and over her hips and thighs, back down to her feet. She didn’t think it could be even better, when he changed the pressure and his fingers barely touched her skin and moved up her body and touched her lips.

“Umm..” was all she could say as his finger trailed over her lips, robbing her of any protest. He spoke, just under a whisper. She couldn’t hear what he was saying. Just wave after wave of sensation bombarded her.

All she could think was that she was in control.

She was in control.

She was… wasn’t she?

***

Strong warm arms wrapped around Jenny as she slowly woke up. She’s never felt anything like last night, and she didn’t want to move. Every bit of tension she had was gone, in more ways than one. She grabbed Tham’s arm and wrapped it closer, feeling his large form wrap around.

“Good morning Captain.” Tham whispered into her ear.

“Mmmm... shut up.” Jenny said, feeling Tham kiss the nape of his neck. “Don’t make me lock you in the cargo hold again.”

“So, what’s on the agenda?” Tham asked with a grin.

“What do you mean? What agenda?” Jenny groaned.

“Well, like… I don’t know. What do you actually do all day other than rescue space trash and roguish time police?” He chuckled. Jenny jerked an elbow back into his cracked ribs. “Ow! What was that for!”

“Foreman’s not space trash” Jenny said sleepily, and wrapped back in his arms. “I’ll court martial you if you say anything like that again.”

“So… You and Foreman just sit out here in space all day?” Tham asked.

“Pretty much. If I need credits or supplies, I do a couple deliveries. I have some clients I can contact and run some cargo. Most of the time it’s on the up and up, but I’ve had a few hot items if the price is right. Having time jumping capabilities is useful for running blockades, and our deliveries are never late.”

“Wow… that’s so bohemian.” Tham chuckled. Jenny rolled over and laid her head on Tham’s chest.

“You’re… weird” Jenny said, still half asleep. “Heartbeats off, do you have a murmur?”

“I have Situs Inversus, my heart and lungs are mirrored, so my heart os on the right side, and not the left.” His fingers trailed over her ear and temple, she heard him talking softly again, and felt herself slowly falling bacl to sleep.

Another hour passed and she woke up by herself. She didn’t like it. She’s always by herself and it was nice to have someone to keep her warm. She reluctantly pulled herself out of bed to the smell of something delicious. She walked back to the cargo bay and saw Foreman wearing a tall white hat with an apron that says Kiss the cook  and Tham cooking over a hot plate next to him There were some crates pushed together to make a table and a few folding chairs set out.

Tham looked up at her entry and gave her a wave. Foreman watched him flip an omelet he was making and plate it. Jenny walked over to the chair and quietly sat. She felt so happy to see Foreman and Tham getting along.

“So what’s all this?”Jenny asked as Tham sat a plate in front of her. It had an omelet with onions, green peppers, and garlic with a squiggle of ketchup on top next to sausage and bacon.

“This…” Tham said with a flourish, “is an homage to my earth ancestors. We call it breakfast of champions!”

“And where… did we get the ingredients to these?” Jenny said with suspicion.

“Hey! I didn’t touch anything! Foreman so kindly piloted us to 1990’s America where I popped out and grabbed some supplies from an Alpha-Beta.” Jenny gave him a scolding glower. “No one saw us! Foreman drove, so we don’t have to worry about the natives seeing a Dalek grocery shopping. You seriously have some bare cupboards by the way… who lives on meal bars?”

“I did until you came in and started spoiling me with things like dinner... ‘ Jenny took a bite and moaned. “Oh god, that’s good.”

“The secret is Ketchup.” Tham grinned and sat down with his plate. They took their time and ate. Foreman stood at the end of the table, watching.

***

“Captain! I’m bored!” Tham said from the desk seat in her room. Jenny was writing in her notebook when she slammed it shut and gave him a coy smile. “Yes, that’s entertaining and fun and I love it, but don’t you want to get out of here? Go and explore! Look at new stars, visit planets or meet new people?

Jenny sighed. It has been two months since Tham… joined? Did she officially invite him to stay? He kind of just showed up and… stayed. Jenny was going to have to clarify that sometime. Her ship was not some halfway house for derelicts.

She liked him, but didn’t fully trust him yet. She’s not going to tell him any secrets, and she talked to Foreman about holding off on their mission until they both agree to let Tham in on the secret. It had crossed her mind that he was still a Time Agent, and could have been placed there to stop whatever she would be doing with Foreman.     

“I don’t like doing that… That’s not me. I’m happy here, in between the stars, just floating on.”

“Well Captain, that’s rather… I don’t know. I know it’s not healthy.” Tham spun in the chair a few times, tossing a ball in the air and catching it. “Why don’t we go visit some friends or family? I’d love to meet your mother and father!”

‘They’re not… well, it’s hard to explain” Jenny said.

“That’s what you always say. With anything I ask you!” Tham bemoaned.

“A girl’s gotta keep her secrets.” Jenny grinned. Tham gave her a sad, puppy eye look “Ohh fine. Where do you want to go?”

“Hrmm…Have you been to Xeros? I heard they got a great museum there. It’s a nice date spot.” Tham said with a grin

“Oh, a date huh?” Jenny chided. “Are we going to sneak in with your psychic paper? Because that really makes a girl feel special.”

“Well, I did pay for dinner last time, We’re progressive in the 54th century, and believe in equality of everything, love and otherwise. So I believe it’s your turn to foot the bill!” Tham grinned. He stood up, kissed Jenny’s cheek and headed to the cockpit.

“You break David and it will be more than ribs I crack!” she shouted out the door.

“And I will love every moment!” Tham shouted back.

Foreman rolled up and looked up at her silently.

“What’s up Foreman?” Jenny asked.

“... Jenny… “ He whispered and rolled off to the cargo bay. Jenny wondered what was going on and followed him.    

“What’s wrong Foreman?” Jenny asked, patting his dome.

“It is… when will Tham be leaving us?” Foreman asked.

“Why do you want him to leave?” Jenny wondered. “Did he do something to you? You can tell me I won’t be mad.”

“It is… not that. He is nice, like Jenny.” Foreman said, looking down.  “Does Jenny like Foreman?”

“Jenny! We’re here!” Tham shouted from the doorway. Tell Foreman to wear his favorite tie! I like the Dalek one! I radioed ahead and let them know he’s coming, so the mass hysteria should be at a minimum.”

“Already?” Jenny shouted back. “I need to shower and change!”

“Well, so do I… we could.. save water.” He said with a sly smile.

“Oh, you wish. Go get Foreman dressed, I’ll be done in ten minutes!” She stormed by him, but not without giving Tham a quick peck and headed to the showers.


	11. The Space Museum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can watch "The Space Museum episodes, this correlates to it perfectly!

Jenny sat in Tham’s lap, and pressed her head against his chest. Tham was the cockpit of David, working the controls as they traveled through the time tracks.

“Wasn’t there a revolution and the space museum was destroyed?” Jenny asked, her eyes were closed and she felt his fingers stroking her hair. Part of her was scared, she was so different now that Tham was here. She didn’t have to be tough as nails. It was a relief to sometimes let go and have someone else take control .

A sudden lurch knocked her off her Tham-chair and onto the console. Tham ungraciously shoved her aside and began scanning for the anomaly they hit. She swore if it’s a blue box she was going to quit.

“Looks like was slipped a time track.” Tham said, and maneuvered the ship back on course. “We’ll be ok. That was weird.”

Jenny picked herself up and smoothed out her jumpsuit.

“Thanks for helping me up” Jenny said with a snide tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry I was a bit rough when our lives were on the line. I’ll be careful to ensure you’re comfortable before I try to keep our remains from being scattered across time and space.” Tham said with a grin. Jenny responded by punching his shoulder. “Oww!”

“Just land the ship flyboy.”

After radioing ahead, Tham steered the ship to a landing platform. Jenny went over the post flight procedures to lock everything down, while Tham followed her directions with only a mild look of annoyance. He was just like a little kid and wanted to hurry up and go.

Foreman met them at the cargo doors with his Fedora and black and white striped tie.

“Hey, I thought I put on that Dalek chasing the Cyberman tie!” Tham said disgruntledly, “You don’t have arms! How did you change it?”

Foreman trained his eye-stalk on Tham and have a mechanical chuckle. “Secret” and pushed the button to open the landing bay. The platform hissed with the escape of air, and lowered to let the trio out.

They left the space port and headed into the city. The Moroks were dressed in white suits with big shoulders and matching pants. Everyone looked uniform. She wondered how bad it would be if she left a few fashion magazines with the clothing designers. They all had the same haircut as well; high sweeping foreheads with the hairline drawing down the center in a big m with the ends puffed outward.

They continued to walk to the museum, but no one seemed to bump them or even acknowledge the strange folks in their midsts, she expected Foreman to get a few strange looks, but no one seemed to care.

“Ok, this is weird. Lets go back.” Jenny said, she was getting a bad vibe all over the place. Everything was off, just slightly. She could feel it to her core. Tham had a grin from ear to ear.

“Oh, you’re being a spoil sport, Lets go!” He said and grabbed her hand. With a slight tug, he coerced her to follow and maneuver through the crowd, being careful not to touch anyone.  

***

  
They made it to the museum without notice.

The Morok administration was in full swing, or it appeared to be. She remembered her father had been key in an uprising when they wanted to capture the  group and place them inside an exhibit.

“See? Isn’t this time well spent?” Tham said, looking at a piece of art. She didn’t recognise it’s style or planet of origin, but it appeared to emit odors as well as vibrantly shift in color.

“Patterns shift into ultraviolet frequencies.” Foreman said.

“Doctor! Wait up!” shouted a voice around the corner. Two hearts missed a beat inside Jenny’s chest. Was that Viki? Speeding in the direction of the voice, Jenny left her companions behind. Oh sweet Viki, She said her goodbyes in Troy when Katrina began to travel with her. Where was Katrina?

“Jenny!” shouted Tham, He was shaking her before she could snap back into reality. What just happened? “You weren’t making sense. You were screaming for Viki and Katrina. Who are they?”

“There're… no one. I don’t know them. I just know them through my father. I.. thought I heard them around the corner.”

Jenny felt dizzy, and clung onto Tham as the world spun.

“What was that?” Jenny asked.

“The slip we did getting here must be correcting itself.” Tham said with a grin. “We might experience a few more before we sync up with the people here.”

“You know an awful lot about this stuff, Tham” She grinned.

“I’m a Time Agent, it’s my job to know.”

“Where’s Foreman?” Jenny asked, steadying herself.

“Jenny… Tham... “ Foreman said from another hall, the two of them followed the mechanical voice and stood in silence as Foreman stared down… another Dalek.

“It’s empty Foreman, it’s an old shell they put on display. I saw it as a kid when I came here.” Tham said with a grin.

They heard footsteps approach.

“Well, what happened, Dako?” said the first man as they walked into the display room.

“I don’t know. I turned my back for a second, the next thing I…” said Dako.

“Well, was it the old man?” Who was the old man, This scene seems familiar…

“I don’t know.” said Dako.

“Did he go outside?”

“I keep telling you. I didn’t see anything. One minute was silence and the next minute a whirlwind hit me.” Dako explained

“He must have gone to join the others. We’ll have to see if we can find him.” the other man said

“Don’t forget they’re still armed.” The man behind them reminded.

“Oh, we’ll have to take our chance this time, otherwise the Moroks will get them first. Come on.”

The three men exited the room, Jenny and Tham were looking at each other in stunned silence.  

An old man’s voice erupted from inside the Dalek “I fooled them all! I am the master!” The lid lifted to reveal an old man with stark white hair in an older victorian style suit and a cain. He huffed and fumbled to climb out of the Dalek shell, and looking rather pleased with himself, began to study the various exhibits.

“We have to go…” Jenny whispered, pulling on Tham’s arm. “I can’t be here.”

Tham shook Jenny’s arm off, and approached the old man with a look of fascination.

“He’s so old… I could almost…” Tham reached his hand out to touch the oblivious old man. Pain shot through Jenny’s head, and the world shook. THe next thing she knew, two pairs of hands were helping her up.

“Tham and Jenny I assume? I am Governer Lobos. Head curator of this fine establishment. We didn’t get notice of your arrival, I do hope you had a safe trip. We… don’t get many visitors since the Morok empire has stopped their conquest.”

Jenny was rubbing her temples, “Yes, yes… Decline and fall of the Roman empire. Oh yes, it’s happened before, yes. In many galaxies far beyond your reach.” She looked over to Tham whose eyes were wide, and was grinning ear from ear.  

“Oh, Rome… I’ve not heard of that planet system before. The Morok empire does span a vast distance, but the universe is always bigger.”

Foreman rolled up and looked at Jenny. “Lets, go back to the ship, you do not look well… Jenny”

“No, It’s fine. Lets go look around. We have the Governor giving us a private tour, you don’t get this chance every day.”

***

The Governor spent the time going over the glorious victories of the Morok empire’s past, showing off various suits and acquired paintings from fallen civilizations. The amount of death it represented made Jenny ill. She paused to study a painting and wondered about the artist. It was a sea of grass lit by a purple sun, there was a lone house on the hill overlooking the fields. The Governor informed her with pride, this was the last artifact recovered from the original inhabitants of the planet before they terra-formed into a factory planet and used it’s resources to build their fleet over a hundred years ago.

“Daleks would not waste effort on such trivial sentiment” Foreman said coldly, looking at the Governor. “Daleks would land, exterminate, and enslave all who oppose us. You would be working in camps, building Dalek ships, and be exterminated when your usefulness was complete. building a shrine to past victories shows weakness.”

“As you can see, your people have fallen to our fleets before.” The Governor said smugly.

“We… learn.” Forman said sinisterly, and rolled away. Jenny gave the Governor a quick smile and ran off after Foreman, leaving Tham to smooth things over.

 

***

“Foreman! What was that all about.”

“He lies…” Foreman said. “The Dalek shell contained a human… They retrieved the corpse of a fallen comrade from the city of Dal. Our current mutation, would not allow a human to fit inside the shell. This was from…”

“From the first group of tests subjects that the Doctor encountered.”

“The renegades.”

“Lets go back to the ship…” Foreman said. Jenny nodded and they quietly made their way back to Tham who was listening intently about the history of a large grandfather clock.

“So, it was just… floating there in the middle of an asteroid field?” Tham said. “My gran had one growing up. She got it from her gran, almost a hundred generations. Solid workmanship it was. We had to replace a few gears and springs, but still worked. I bet I could fix it.” Tham’s gaze locked onto the Governors, as he put his hand on his shoulder. “How about two hundred units? You don’t have any real need for it, it’s such a wonderful piece.”

“Well, since we don’t know it’s history, it merely was just a bit of an oddity. Sure thing. I’ll have my men deliver it to your ship.” With that, he gestured, two guards lifted the clock and walked out the door. She assumed it would be on her ship when they got back.  

“So now you’re moving junk into my ship? I don’t think Foreman and I have officially invited you to stay. I’m just keeping you around till I get bored.” Jenny chided.

“Oh you’ll never get bored of me.” he cooed back. “We have a clock now!”

“What’s wrong with the chronometer the ship has, and who needs a clock when you have a time machine?”

“It’s a special clock.” Tham said with a wink.

***

They got back on the ship, and Tham placed the clock in the cargo bay, across from his docked ship. He stood back, placed his arm around Jenny who looked at it with a crinkled nose.

“It’s ugly,” she said. “Like, really ugly.”

“Hey, I don’t go knocking your interior designs.” Tham said offhandedly.

“Yeah, well, I don’t have them. You better secure the thing. If the Sontarans ever find me to give me my medal, it might be knocked down, and we don’t want to break precious clock.”

Foreman looked at the clock for a moment and rolled away.

“What’s his problem?” THam said

“Oh, the museum was hard on him. The Dalek they had was a dead shell on Skaro they scavenged. He’s upset the director was lying about it.” Jenny explained. She didn’t want to go into too much detail about Skaro.

“So, who cares?” Tham asked, and began to polish the clock. Fury began to well inside Jenny’s chest as his lack of empathy. She was about to say something when she saw Foreman peeking out from the corner. She decided to go talk to him before she locked Tham in the cargo bay again.

***

“Foreman, what’s up?” Jenny asked. she knelt down to eyestalk level.

“When will Tham leave?” Foreman asked.

“Foreman, I know he’s a bit of a jerk, but he’s nice too. Why do you want him to leave? He’s starting to feel like family, just like you.” Jenny said, rubbing Foreman’s dome.

“I know… Jenny needs Tham. He can…comfort...” Foreman paused, and looked down. “There’s something… not right. When I learn of it, I will tell you.” He said and rolled away.

Both of Jenny’s hearts broke, was she this blind? She had given up on restoring Foreman for months  to traipse around the galaxy with Tham. All while Foreman watched in the distance, trapped inside his metal case. She didn’t even like Tham, he was annoying and a jerk most of the times. But that didn’t stop her from…

Jenny felt nauseous and ran to the restroom.

  
  



	12. River

“Tham!” Jenny shouted. Where is he? She checked the cargo hold, the captain’s quarters, and the cockpit. The ship was three rooms, there was no other place he could be!

“Tham!” She gave another shout.

“Jenny!” Tham shouted back from the cargo hold. She just checked there! Where was he hiding.

“Tham, we’re about to drop out of warp, I need you to load the cargo. I’ll play cards with Foreman, so we don’t cause another incident with the colony.” Last time she made this run, Foreman ‘helped’ and almost incinerated the whole cargo bay. She couldn’t blame him, they did fire on him first, and he was wearing his ‘Hello! I am a good Dalek, ask me a question’ sign.

“Alright! I’ll see you in an hour! Go spend time with Fore, I’ll get the ship landed and docked.” Tham shouted back as Jenny closed the door to her room. Foreman was in the corner, watching Jenny move from the door to her bed. She pulled out a small folding table and dealt the cards.

“You see where he was hiding?” Jenny asked.

“The clock.” Foreman replied.

“He was fixing the clock?” Jenny asked puzzled.

“He was in the clock.” Foreman replied,

“So he was fixing the clock.” Jenny repeated. “I didn’t see him anywhere near it when I looked for him.”

“He was inside the clock.” Foreman repeated. “I want two cards.” He pushed forward two cards to Jenny who rapidly dealt him two more cards. “Fold.”

“Is something wrong Foreman?” Jenny asked, dealing the cards.

“I wish to continue our journey…” Foreman replied, there was a longing in his voice. “But I now understand, it must be delayed.”

“Why?” Jenny asked. After she got sick last week, the little Dalek had been fretting over her. Tham has been nicer and more tentative, it had been weird.

“I have spoken with Tham. I kept our mission secret, but I understand waiting. It is hard.”

“I don’t remember you talking with Tham.” Jenny tried to think back, but Tham went to bed with her, and tended to be a late sleeper, she didn’t remember there being much time for them to have spoken.

“We talked while I helped him fix the clock.” Foreman said, and moved his plunger of the cards. Jenny flipped them and swore to the four of a kind that was reveiled.

“What do you know about fixing clocks?” Jenny chuckled.

“Force field from a Farquazi time cruiser needed repair. A Dardis core was damaged, it was an old Skaro model. We needed to reroute power to the Vordis cloak and rebuild a Rutian Analysis Engine.” Foreman said nonchalantly.  “Draw two.”

Jenny’s hands were numb. She couldn’t formulate words to speak.

“Is something wrong Jenny?” Foreman asked. “I know you need Tham, i’ll get him for you.”

“Who said I need him?” Jenny asked. The clock question was filed away to come back to, she needed to look for something simple to grasp onto.

“Tham. We talked as we worked on the clock. I understand why you two must be together.” Foreman said, His eyestalk looked down, not meeting her gaze. “You are the last.”

“What… exactly did he say?” Jenny said with clenched teeth. Foreman looked up and replied.

“When four hearts can sing and beat as two, a gift rarer than the moon of blue.”  Foreman said.

“That’s… Gallifreyan.” Jenny mumbled.  

Jenny couldn’t stay put. She rushed out of the room and opened the cargo bay. Tham was gone. He must be offworld getting the cargo. In the corner stood the old grandfather clock he got from the space museum.

“Foreman” She whispered. She could feel him behind her. “I want to go inside the clock”

“I will show you.” Foreman said, almost sinisterly…”He wanted to show you himself… but only when the weapons systems were functional.” Foreman almost shoved her aside and rolled into the cargo bay. The Dalek’s width was twice that of the clock. The wood door opened by itself and Foreman rolled into the clock and disappeared. she ran through the door …

 

***

Jenny’s hearts stopped. She was looking at a T.A.R.D.I.S control panel. It’s octagonal shape painfully familiar. She knew each and every dial, lever, and switch. Jenny walked around the control room in amazement, gently touching the controls and feeling the throbbing hum of it’s engines.

It wasn’t sexy, it was… perverted and off. There was a darkness to this T.A.R.D.I.S. Jenny couldn’t ignore.

“No…” She whimpered and fell to her knees.. “No… no… no… It’s not... “

“Jenny,” Foreman rolled up to her and rested his his plunger on her shoulder. “I told you I would find out who Tham is… He is a Time Lord like the Doctor. Jenny must be with her own kind. Tham is the last of his kind, as are you.”

“He’s no Time Lord…” Jenny whispered. “How could I be so stupid… the whispers, I should have known with the whispers.” Jenny looked up at Foreman, she wrapped her arms around his chassis and cried

“I failed you, I should have seen it. He said it right to me the first day we met!” Jenny cried.

“See what… Jenny?”

“Tham Retes… his name is The Master”

There was a long, slow clap behind her. Jenny turned around and saw Tham.

“Good job… Doctor. Well done! I thought you might be mad to have gone Corsair on me, but I rather enjoyed our game… Where is it?

“I’m not the Doctor!” Jenny hissed.

“Oh… Jenny, of course you don’t think you are.” Tham said, approaching her and touching her hair. He gave her a sly grin and walked to the control consol, flipping a few switches. “The fob watch… Where are you hiding it? If It’s inside your Dalek friend, I’ll rip it apart.”

“What are you talking about? I’m Jenny, I’m not him!” Jenny was in a panic. She knew who the man in front of her was, and what he was capable of. There was nothing special about her, she was just a girl with a ship.

“Doctor… I’m your best friend, you’re constant shadow, you don’t think I wont see you? Feel your soul? Our lives are intertwined, You may deny it, but we are soul mates.” Tham said, his eyes wide with delight. “You locked away your memories in a fob watch, you may have programmed it so you don’t even think of it… it could be an heirloom, or a trinket you picked up.” He began to pace and mumble to himself. “If you could remember, I peeled away as much as I could during our nights.”

Jenny felt sick. She was shaking all over. Foreman stood vigilantly silent behind her.

“Why are you doing this to Jenny… Tham?” Foreman asked.

“Foreman! Don’t you see? She’s the Doctor! She’s the one who destroyed your race! I… have a treaty with your emperor, you should know my authority!”

“Jenny is a clone of the Doctor. Jenny is Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter. Jenny is not The Doctor.” Foreman informed. Tham looked puzzled for a moment and laughed.

“She has you fooled too! He… well now she is a clever one. I didn’t think it for the longest time. We always fought, always bickered. I looked up to you! Always running behind you, chasing your back. We never talk! Why won’t you ever just sit down and talk! You only ever see me when I try to destroy a country, or overthrow an empire.”

“You’re insane.” Jenny whimpered. “I’m Jenny. I thought you loved me.”

“Oh Doctor, all this time, I thought I despised you but you proved me wrong! It is love that we feel. When I saw your first form on the space museum I knew! I knew it was you! The T.A.R.D.I.S was there in it’s dilapidated state, just as I planned after our last encounter.”

Tham rambled on but all Jenny could do was hug Foreman and cry. She didn’t know what was happening and her entire world was shattered. She was falling in love with her father’s worst enemy, and everything was a lie. He saw her as her father. In his sick and twisted way, he was making love to her dad each time they were together. She felt sick, dirty, used, and about to lose all sense.

“Foreman…” She choked out between sobs. “Exterminate.”

She clung on as tight as she could as the shots erupted from Foreman. Tham dove under the console for protection and rolled to the door while Jenny clung onto his chassis.    

“NO!” Tham screamed and fired back with her sidearm. The bastard was shooting at her with her own gun! “NO! Doctor! You’re mine! We are together now!” The T.A.R.D.I.S.  lurched side to side, knocking him on the floor. “I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!” Tham screamed as Foreman pulled Jenny out of the control room and into the cargo bay of the ship.

Foreman continued firing inside the open doorway of the clock when the ship’s cargo bay door began to open. Jenny held her breath as the bay decompressed and jettisoned the clock, Tham’s ship, and most of her boxes. Didn’t they land on the planet? or was that another lie he told her.

The combination of depressurization, lack of oxygen and the stress of the entire situation caused Jenny to pass out.

***

She woke up to a rubber plunger rolling against her forehead. The sound of a mutilated version of Beethoven's 5th symphony that sounded like a cat in a tin box was being strangled.

“Foreman… what are you… doing?”

“Jenny sings to Foreman…” he said.

“Where’s Tham?” She asked. Foreman stopped his rubbing and rolled back. “I… I know, I remember, just… is he?”

“My targeting was off, the treaty with the Dalek empire might be programmed into the computer, and I was not able to exterminate Tham. I jettisoned him into the time stream.”

“When did we get into the time stream?” Jenny asked. She grabbed a pillow and clung onto it.

“As I was firing on Tham, I seized control of David and took us into the timestream, The only way to escape was jettisoning him inside. He would not be able to track us.”

“My Foreman… You are so smart.” Jenny leaned over and hugged the Dalek. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I failed you…” Foreman said mournfully. “It was obvious I could not shoot Tham, our first altercation I was shooting to kill, During our practices, I was unable to target correctly, I assumed it was a malfunction and attempted to correct. Diagnostics showed no errors. I should have looked further into it. I should have discovered him sooner. He told me about being a Time Lord, and your memories were gone. If I denied this, it would have violated the trust he gave me. I was trying to find out more about him.”  

“Foreman… You didn’t fail me.” Jenny said, giving him another hug. “Don’t ever leave me.”

***

“God, I feel so stupid…” Jenny said, blowing her nose. Forman stood next  to her with his sign and hat. They were in 1930’s France, at a small cafe, eating pastries and drinking tea.

“Darling, that sounds awful. I’m so glad you survived.” Said the woman across from her.

“What do you think will happen?” Jenny said with a sniff.

“My sweet, lovely daughter. That would be telling.” River Song grinned, and opened a Tardis blue journal. “I’m just checking my notes here... You really should talk to your father about this, but… not just yet.”

“God, I don’t want to talk to Dad about this. All his thoughts are all through my head most of the time, I can't sort out who I am and who he is.” Jenny took a sip and looked up at River, whose face was cast in shadow. Her jaw was clenched, and she put her journal away.

“You have a lot of nerve.” She said. Jenny could feel him. Foreman’s chassis was visibly shaking with rage. “I should take care of you myself.”

“But you can’t, River. You know it, and I know it. I have a bigger destiny, and so does she.” the voice behind Jenny said. She could feel a finger run through her hair, sending chills down her back. “It’s time to come with me Doctor… I’ve missed you. The nights are so lonely.”   

Jenny was paralyzed. She wanted to scream, whimper, or cry. His hands were on her shoulders, rubbing them the way she loved. The touch was perverted now, it was like slime covered her. All she could do was stand as stiff as she could and let the tears stream down her cheeks.

“I don’t care what repercussions there are. You take your hands off my daughter. I’m not as forgiving as my husband.”

“What can you do… human?” Tham sneered.

“One…” River said cooly, and opened her purse.

“I know all about you and your little affair with The Doctor. She’s mine now, and the Doctor will come with me. I will show her the other side of things. I will show her the darkness.

“Two…” River said, and pulled out a small tube. Opening it, revealed red lipstick. She twisted the base to adjust it to the proper size.

“I’m taking the Doctor.” Tham said, his fingers began to tighten on her shoulders, the pain was terrible. She could feel his nails dig into her skin.

“Three…” With that, she began to put on her lipstick, nonchalantly.

One of the hands raised up, Jenny had closed her eyes, so she didn’t see why he let go, but the sound of a rifle went off in the distance. Tham screamed, Jenny felt something fall into her lap… his hand.

“You… crazy…” another shot rang out that struck his shoulder, there were more shots fired that hit their mark at his feet. He began to move back away from the table and Jenny and retreat off into the street.

Jenny was stunned. What just happened?

“Jenny, love, clean that off your lap, it’s not sanitary.” River handed her a napkin. Jenny wrapped up the severed hand and handed it back. River put it in her purse and smiled.

“Who… was that?” she asked as River handed her a pair of oversized binoculars and pointed to the distance. Jenny put them up to her eyes and saw on the roof of the tallest building was… River with a sniper rifle and behind her was a blue Police box.

“Next week I’m going to tell lovey to pick me up the week before and hand me this note.” She said and passed Jenny a folded piece of paper. Jenny opened it up. “Shoot the bastard’s hand off when I put on my lipstick and don’t let him out when you do it.”

“Do you do this sort of stuff all the time? Just follow random notes?” Jenny asked in amazement. The thought of fourth dimensional thinking just hurt her already fried brains.

“Why not? I figure I’ll learn why I wrote them, and it gives me something to think about between breakouts.” River said with a grin. She was still serving a lifetime sentence for killing the Doctor in a maximum security prison. Her affair with him was unique, as each time they met, she was a little older, and he was younger. It was like they were starting on two ends of a time line and passing like ships in the night.

“You, have so much more to be doing.” River said with a grin. “And you know The Master, He’s a tenacious bastard and will fined you.”

“Why didn’t you just kill him?” Jenny bemoaned.

“It’s not his time. He’s tied to too many things right now. So much will unravel.” River explained while taking a sip of her coffee.

“Like… Davros.” Foreman interjected.

“Oh my sweet, little Foreman, yes, exactly.” River grinned as the church bells rang twelve. “Oh Jenny, love, I don’t want to cut this short, but I’m meeting your father in twenty minutes and I can’t have you here… I think this one is before he’s even met Amy. Oh, the poor idiot.’

Jenny gave her mother a hug. She pulled her back and rubbed her shoulders, and embraced her again. “I hate this sometimes…” she whispered into Jenny’s ear. “I wish we can all just be a family. Visit more, I worry. I love you”

Jenny couldn’t hold back anymore and began to cry on her mother’s shoulder. She rocked her back and forth rubbing her back..

“Foreman, make sure she stays safe…. Oh! I almost forgot… I had one heck of a time trying to get your father to do this without saying why.” River pulled out a sonic screwdriver and pointed it at Foreman. With it’s signature ‘EEEEEEEEE’ she looked at it’s readout and nodded approvingly.

“That canceled the Master’s diplomatic immunity on your system. Feel free to disintegrate him at will.” River gave Foreman a hug and kissed his dome, leaving a red lipstick mark.

Jenny waved goodbye to River and headed back to her ship.

***

Jenny put the ship in a stable orbit around a black hole. She’d surfed the gravitational waves around that spot many times, and had stared into the empty maw of the most destructive force in the universe.

After all she’d been through, it felt like the safest place to be.

Jenny lay in bed, almost in a comatose state. She completely broke down. Foreman was in her cabin every day, standing vigial, trying to get her to eat. She wanted to die, if she died and regenerated a new body, maybe The Master wouldn’t find her. Could she regenerate? Her situation was tricky and she didn’t know if they had ever experimented with Time Lord clones on Gallifrey.

“Foreman… You don’t have to be here.” She whispered. “I don’t deserve it.” Her arms were limp and she felt like she could barely force the words out.

“I do not wish to go.” Foreman said. and placed the plunger on her forehead. She didn’t have the heart to tell him it only made her headache worse. “Shall I sing you a song?”

“I’m sorry, Foreman. All those times you asked and I never answered. I’m a horrible person. You deserve a better friend. I’ve been terrible to you. I want to blame Tham, I want to say he hypnotized me, or did mind control, but I know better. I was in love… god. I was in love with The Master!” Jenny began to cry into her pillow.

“What did you not answer?” Foreman asked once Jenny removed her face from her pillow.

“You asked me “Does Jenny like Foreman. Yes… Yes, Foreman, I do like you.” Jenny laid down, and grabbed Foreman’s plunger and held onto it as she fell asleep. It would take time, but she needed to get back on her feet and take care of Foreman. She was going to save him, and make up for all of this.

Just as she was drifting off to sleep, Jenny realized... she had to pee.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Corsair is the name of a Time Lord who has switched genders many times


	13. Skaro Revisited

 

Weeks passed. Jenny was tended to by Foreman the best he could. She was nauseous, riddled with nightmares. Every creak and sound of the ship made her jump. She would sit for hours in the pilot’s seat, staring at the console and into the black abyss. She wanted to die.

“How can you live like this?” Jenny asked Foreman with a croak. She heard him approach behind her as quietly as he could.

“Live like what?” Foreman replied.

“I’m sure you felt like this, for betraying the other Daleks. This empty… sinking feeling. I feel dirty, I can’t get Tham’s touch off of me! Was it like this when I made you come? You wanted to die for freeing me, and I forced you onto the ship with me. I thought I was saving you… oh, you must despise me…”

“Yes… at first” Foreman said. “I didn’t understand… new emotions? All I know is anger… fear… hate… I knew of kindness… love… compassion but never… felt?. I have secretly read about them at great risk to myself. I fight… every day not to… fall back. If I ever hurt Jenny…”

Jenny smiled to herself and wiped away her tears. It was time to get back to business at hand. She was going to help Foreman!

“Ok, lets go.” Jenny said, and flipped some switches.

“Go where?” Foreman asked.

“Where it all started.” Jenny said with a smile. She flipped the switches and the ship faded into the time streams.

***

Planet Skaro shone like a jewel, there were no signs of war, the air was clean and free of industrial waste, It was pristine and beautiful. Foreman was beside her, and looked at his untouched homeworld. Jenny gave the metal chassis a pat, and flipped a few switches.

“You added some cloaking tech on here right?” Jenny asked.

“Affirmative,” Foreman paused. “We’re cloaked from all forms of radiation. Visible light as well.”

“Lets go orbit the planet a few times and look for a place to…”

“I wish to go to Dal.” Foreman interrupted. “I… want to see my people, their art… music… dance… I want to see Dals before… this.” Foreman moved his plunger, to indicate himself.  

“Is that really a good idea?” Jenny asked, but she knew the answer. She’d do whatever Foreman asks. He saved her from Tham. Jenny felt sick just thinking about him, and diverted her thoughts on locating the capital city of the Dals.

***

They landed just on the outskirts of the city. She worried about being attacked again, but Foreman didn’t fly off the handle this time. If she was any judge of his personality, he seemed to be in a more somber attitude.

“So… how are we going to explain you? Want to just stay here and I’ll go in and get the sample?

“It doesn’t matter what you say about me… I am never leaving your side.” Foreman said and activated the bay doors. he rolled out into the open air and spun the dome in a full 360 degrees. “No hostiles detected.”

“Hey Fore’ turn down your lasers, we are in your past, so if you shoot someone it may cause you not to exist.” Jenny said. Foreman trained his eyestalk on her and rolled out of view. She grabbed the DNA scanner Sister Katlin gave her, attached her sidearm and ran after him.

***

The hike to the city was a good hour through dense foliage. They landed in a clearing in the forest just outside Dal

“Ok I got to ask… you’re on wheels! I’m having a hard enough time walking this trail without spraining an ankle. How are you just rolling along without getting stuck.”

“Since my… upgrade. The base of my encasing was given microgravity emitters. I’m able to levitate on uneven surfaces. Forward momentum is still achieved through the motorized wheels. It has vast power consumption, So I do not use it unless I have to.”

Jenny grinned back at Foreman when they came into a clearing. the city of Dal was beheld in all it’s majesty.

It’s a thousand years younger than the last time they were there. The walls were gone, and it’s more cobble and concrete. Jenny was awestruck with the designs of the city itself. It was a small communal lifestyle. There was farmlands and houses scattered, but Dal was a central hub. There was no drastic sprawl of growth in a thousand years.

“Foreman, why is the city this size… the same size as it was a thousand years from now?”

“The war, killed many. The Dals never needed more room to expand, The city had never been full. Thals raided and took what they wanted. Dals used the war to expand their technology.”

“Wars have been known to be the catalyst of advancement. I’m just surprised the evolution of your people is so… slow compared to say, humans. It only took them a hundred years and two wars to get into space from the point these people are at.”

“I do not know... “ Foreman said mournfully. “Our histories are kept from us. Those who look into it are exterminated. I have a theory, that the constant fighting with no breaks have kept each population from expanding.”

“I see,” Jenny said and dropped the conversation until they reached the main gates.

“So… what’s the plan?” Jenny asked. “We just knock someone out and take a sample?”

“It really should be from a direct ancestor.” came a smooth, cool voice that sent Jenny’s neck hairs on edge.

Jenny and Foreman spun around and saw Tham dressed in local clothes holding a rather scared Dal in front of him, using him as a human shield.

“Tham!” Jenny screamed and pulled her side arm. Foreman raised his laser arm to target The Master. “What are you doing here? ”

“Ahhh, lover, I wouldn’t... “ Tham said with a grin and prodded the man in front of her. “I have taken the liberty of killing the rest already. This is the last one… He will mate and proceed to spawn like a good little Dal that will give the genetic lineage to Foreman here. But, if you decide to forego this, I’ll kill him right here and destroy his timeline, yours, and even mine. This one has strong connections. I think it will irreversibly break most of it… but I can’t be sure and I’d love to find out what the new timeline would look like.”

“How did you even know?” Jenny whispered. She was trying to keep her calm, but seeing his coy smile and cocky swagger was almost too much.  

“I am… The Master. It should be painfully obvious, Doctor.” Tham said with a grin. he waved the stump of his hand in a dismissive gesture and prodded the terrified Dal forward.

“You ejected me mid timestream, doing damage to my TARDIS, I of course had to repair it over the course of a few years. In that time, I had mapped out your timeline, and wondered why you went to New New York. I saw the lovely mess you made in there Foreman, and overheard that cat nurse talk to you about the plan you kept from me.”

Tham looked genuinely hurt. “I trusted you, love. I thought you would share all your secrets with me, but to pick a Dalek over me?”

“What do you want?” Foreman said and trained his laser on Tham. “I disengaged your Dalek protocol. I can exterminate you before you before you harm my ancestor. You hurt Jenny… that is unforgivable.”

“So, you are more than a walking puppy.” Tham sneered. “Always following her around, pining away at the unobtainable. You think she’d love you? You’re her pet.”

“Tham…” Jenny said, raising her sidearm, her hand still as a surgeon's.   

“The Dalek is correct, I do want something and I’ll offer you a trade. The good Doctor does love his pets and doesn’t like to see them hurt.”

“Go to hell” Jenny choked.

“I’m sure I’ve seen far worse than that place.” Tham grinned. “Now, I don’t want to really muck up the timeline, so drop your gun, and follow me. Once we get to my ship, we’ll be off and I’ll leave this creature to breed.”

“Jenny…” Foreman said, but she shook her head and lowered her side arm.

“What is it you want?” Jenny whispered.

“Why… you!” Tham said flatly. “You are all I’ve thought about those years I was gone. I miss our conversations, our laughter and the coy back and forths we had… and you know how to break the time lock on Gallifrey, and I wished to have a conversation with our good friend Rassilon and some of his writings. My scrolls are incomplete, and if I’m to re-create Gallifrey in my own image and rule all of the Time Lords… I need the key inside your head.”

“You’ll let the Dal go?” Jenny said.

“You have my word of honor. You know me well enough that I never go back on a promise.” Tham said with a sly grin.

Jenny was shaking all over. To be with him again… was too much. But all that Foreman’s done for her, she needed to save that Dal.

“Fine… I’ll go.” Jenny said and dropped her pistol

“NO!” Foreman screamed and rolled forward. Jenny put out her hand to stop him, and the Dalek obeyed.

“It’s okay Foreman, We’ll come back for him after we help Tham.” Jenny said placatingly. She looked back at Tham. “Let the Dal go.”

With a smile, he opened his arms and the terrified Dal ran as fast as he could into the foliage of the woods.

“Quite the little rabbit isn’t he?” Tham chuckled.  “Oh, and you seem to have made a minor grammatical error… there will be no ‘we’ coming with us.”

Before Jenny could react, Tham pointed the rodlike device at Foreman. A green laser erupted, landing on the golden chassis. It turned red hot, and melted away, piercing through to the other side. Jenny screamed as the plunger, laser arm, and eyestalk dropped, all signs of activity gone.

“Foreman!” Jenny screamed. She ran over to him, but he was too hot to touch. “Foreman! Oh god you killed him!”

“I told you I would not destroy his ancestor, he was fair game.” Tham said politely and grabbed her wrist. “There, there. He’s just a Dalek.”

“I will never forgive you for this…” Jenny sobbed. “I will kill you in your sleep. I will scatter your ashes across time so there’s no way to revive your dark, twisted heart.”

“Yes, yes, you always say such nice things to me, Doctor.” Tham said, grabbed her wrist and yanked her away from the smoking husk of the Dalek.

“Lets go to our new home and have some tea… my dear.”

Jenny sobbed as she was led away by Tham and into the cloaked Tardis that was shaped like a marble column.  

From the edge of the foliage, the captured Dal watched the strange pillar disappear, leaving the cooling husk that would be his descendant.

  
  
  



	14. The Highest Bidder

 

“Foreman...” Jenny whispered and sobbed into her knees. She saw the smoking husk of his shell in her mind, and the silence that followed. There was no scream, no cry of pain… just silence and it was over. She replayed the scene over and over in her mind, there was nothing she could have done differently. She willed her mother to pop up out of the bushes and save them all, but that obviously hadn’t happened, that means she never got in contact with her to set up an intervention and that means she lost the time game. All she could do is cry. Her heart was rendered to shreds.

“I still need your help, Doctor” Tham… or The Master said through the tiny window in her cell. it was a small room about eight feet squared. She scooted herself around and turned her back to him. “We’ll give it a few more weeks then…” he said, and closed the window, engulfing her in darkness.

Jenny didn’t care. She was lost. Her one friend died in front of her, and the man she grown to love turned out to be the most evil creature in the galaxy. She just wished she could die and be done with it, She could probably do it a few times, but there’s no guarantee her personality in the next regeneration would want to kill herself again. the next version of her may go along with Tham and they would become the next Bonny and Clyde.

She lost count of how many days she was in the cell. She ate what was given to her, and she withdrew inside herself falling ever deeper into despair. When she felt she hit rock bottom, Tham opened the door.

“Doct… er Jenny, this is silly, come out of there and lets be reasonable.” Tham said with his charming smile and extended his hand. With a blank expression, and no joy, she took the extended hand and stood up. No words passed between the two as Tham lead Jenny out of the cell and into a room down the hall.

It was a large bedroom with a huge library of books, a desk with a three way mirror and various brushes, jewelry boxes, and makeups, a king size four post bed with black silk sheets.

“Jenny, I missed you so.” Tham said, he held her from behind, and ran his hands over her arm. Jenny was numb and didn’t care. She felt her hair being touched and could hear The Master sniff a lock.

“This… is your room.” Tham whispered in her ear. “Go shower and get changed. I have acquired an extensive wardrobe for you.”

Jenny pulled away and headed to the open door that showed the lavish bathroom. Tham followed her and stood outside the door. Jenny didn’t care. She removed her clothes and got in. Tham watched the whole time as she scrubbed months of sweat and grime off her body.

“Beautiful” she heard him say when she got out and dried herself off. She dropped the towel and walked naked to the closet and opened the door. The closet was huge and she could not see the back of it. The rows of cloths gathered to a point in the horizon. She was about to step in to find some clothes when she felt a hand on her shoulder and Tham closed the door in front of her.

It was too much.

She burst into sobbing fits as Tham led her to the bed, turned down the sheets and eased her in. He continued to shush her and stroke her hair, occasionally saying ‘there there’. She rolled over to face away from him and squeezed her eyes shut, and began to shake all over when she felt him get in the bed with her.

***

“Eggs and toast for breakfast today Jenny?” Tham said with a cheerful smile. They sat at a small table laden with breakfast foods. Coffee, tea, tarts, toast, eggs, and everything else one would think of for a healthy morning meal. Jenny’s gaze fixated on a spot on the back wall. Tham had stayed with her every night for what almost felt like months. Time in his corrupted TARDIS was impossible to measure. He dressed her up like a doll, and used her any way he wanted. She didn’t care. It was over.

“I would hope you’d be more talkative.” The Master said with a grin. “But I can appreciate the docile company. I need you to get dressed up. We’re going to a party and I’m going to need you to help me with something.”

Jenny slowly reached over and picked up a piece of toast. Grabbing the butter knife she scraped off a square and proceeded to spread it on the bread. The knife felt heavy in her hand and was relieved to set it back down. Without saying a word, she nibbled on the side and nodded.

She knew she needed to escape, this could be her chance, but the blanket of depression was heavy and suffocating, Jenny didn’t want to do anything but stare at a wall. Eating was hard enough. This time she had a tiny victory putting butter on her bread. She’s gripping onto what ever she could to keep her sanity.

“Jenny!” Tham screamed and slammed his fist on the table. The sudden noise startled her and she fumbled her toast, she watched helplessly as it fell to the floor, almost in slow motion and landing butter side down. “I need you coherent. You haven’t said a word since you’ve arrived and I’ve been patient and kind. You’re done grieving that miserable tin can and you will snap out of this!”

“I hate you…” Jenny whispered. She tried to reach down to pick up the toast, but she felt like she couldn’t be bothered to move further than her arm’s reach. Her tiny victory was too far away to claim.

“Realize, we have all the time in the world. I can just as easily put you back in your cage.” Tham glowered and shoved another piece of toast in her hand. “EAT!”

***

Jenny stared at herself in the mirror and put on a pair of dangle earrings. they were green stones from some planet The Master destroyed to boost the value of them. One thing she learned during her time with her captor was how materialistic and possessive he was. She was never allowed out of her room without him, and she was never allowed to touch his things, something she was now considered.

“Jenny, dear. Are you almost ready?” Tham said , popping his head into her open door. He was wearing a flashy formal outfit that resembled a sari. The pattern shimmered in the light and seemed to sing almost outside of perceived hearing.

“Almost sweetie,” She said with a cheerful demeanor. Tham insisted on playful banter. If she failed to give him the proper answer, she would spend weeks in her prison cell. She had to fake everything around him, or he would become prone to violence. He had beaten her within an inch of her life more than once until she could choke out the words I love you.

Every night, she lay awake plotting how to kill the man next to her, as he slept soundly. His arm across her chest, as if never wanting to let her go. There were days he would be downright charming and seem sincere. She had to keep telling her self she was trapped and how much she hated him, but whenever she fell asleep, she woke up further and further away from those feelings. She knew he was doing something to her, and she grabbed onto what ever she could to keep her feelings her own.

Jenny put her hair in a bun and kept them in place with a jeweled hairpin. Her matching sari glimmered in the light. She walked over to Tham and gave him a peck on the cheek. She wanted to pull the hair pin out and stab him in the face, but she refrained. She was weak, starved and sore all over. She was in no condition to fight the monster next to her.

“It’s time.” Tham said with a grin, and presented a box to her.

“Oh? What’s this?” Jenny said with a smile. She took it and opened the box to see a necklace dripping in jewels that matched her earrings. “Oh you shouldn’t have, they’re lovely!”

“I also installed a small device, so if you get separated from me, I’ll be able to find you…” Tham said with a grin. “These auctions are rather exclusive, and can have some unsavory folks attending them. I want you safe.”

“You’re always looking after me…” Jenny said “So, where are we headed?”

“Suritha 3. It’s a neutral location and holds one of the biggest auction houses in the universe. Anything can be bought and sold there, from gold, jewels, art, to slaves and some even say souls. That planet has a special exemption from all known law enforcement, past and future and will not allow any detection devices within the system. You bring a pad and pencil with you on planet, and you will be shot on sight.”

“Lovely…” Jenny said with a grin. “Shall we?”

Tham took Jenny’s offered hand and walked to the main control room of his TARDIS. With a few flips of a switch, he motioned to the door. Tham’s TARDIS lacks the whoo whoo sound her father’s does, and had a working chameleon circuit, so they stepped out from the side of a clock and walked into the main auction hall.

“What are we here for?” Jenny asked

“It’s a surprise…” Tham said with a grin. There was a warble sound from the speaker system indicating the auction is starting. Everyone rushed to take their seats, and Jenny felt people pressing against each other to try and find the best spot. She felt a sharp prick on her arm, and looked over to see a hairy beast with long talon. It shrugged and sat down. Tham moved them to the front row and somehow convinced a couple to give them the seats.

A small insectoid creature that resembled a cricket approached the bench and began the auction.

“Welcome all manner of creatures. We have a great number of items up for bid, All are one of a kind, and all are worth the large fortunes you will be paying for them.” the auctioneer clicked. Tham’s TARDIS should be translating everything for her. The others must have translators too.

“First item up for bid.” the insect motioned and a large rock skinned bipedal creature walked out and stood in front of the attendees. He was a mass of boulders, with no visible sensory organs. “Broyk”

“For you collectors out there. Broyk is the last of his kind. Life span is three galactic rotations, he’s barely been sentient for an eighth of one. The seller was able to acquire him before his homeworld was enveloped in a gamma ray burst.”

Jenny knew the pain of being lost and alone. She looked over at Tham, wondering if this was the ‘surprise’ The bidding started, and she couldn’t believe her ears. The bidders were not using any currency, but various goods. One bet a planet’s food supply for life, while other bet the contents of mineral mines. The auctioneers had more wealth than could be imaginable, with thousands of star systems under their control, they could bid an entire population into enslavement and destroy billions of lives on a whim.

Broyk went to a massive creature with six eyes and twelve appendages. It sat on a hover device, and seemed delighted as Broyk was lead over to him.

“I wonder what he’s going to use that creature for.” Jenny said. Tham chuckled.

“Use?” he said and pointed. As if on cue, the creature grabbed Broyk and proceeded to tear him apart and shovel each rocky appendage into its gaping maw. Green acidic slime coated the rocky skin, melting them down to their base minerals. The trun thrashed about and Jenny could imagine the creature screaming in agony, but no sound came from the living stone, just a wave of suffering that slammed into her. The creature was projecting it’s emotions on the crowd! The winner seemed to revel in it’s pain, and proceeded to tear of handfuls of rock from the bottom up, leaving the head for last.

Everyone watched as it finished it’s meal. A meal that cost twelve planets, all inhabited and one who’s just dipping their toes into the local solar system. Tham was chuckling at the spectacle.

‘That’s horrible…” Jenny whispered. Her hands were trembling. Tham put his hand on hers reassuringly, but it made it worse. She was about to lose it and he knew it.

The auctioneer brought out various other items. A gem that could only be forged from a neutron star (should the gravitational field collapse, the whole system would implode), Various races for enslavement, and one auction was for the right to change the outcome of a historical event.

“Here it comes,” Tham said with a grin and motioned ahead. A burly humanoid with pink skin wheeled out a cart with a red cloth covering it.

“Simply put, this is unusual, even for us. We know how easy this is to come by, but the seller assures us there will be a buyer. I give the podium over to the archeological Professor to explain this item, and why it’s of such great value.”

A man, about mid 20’s took the stage. He was short, with a cybernetic eye, bright pink skin, blue hair that was unattainable and seemed to walk with a limp.

“Greetings, I am Professor Rolfe. I first want to say one word…. Time Lords”

There was a general murmur with the audience, as he gave a charming smile and presented a small box.

“We all know of them. We know the legends. We know of The Doctor and his quest to aid the universe, but do you know their history?”

“Gallifrey was their planet. Locked in a perpetual war and ripped from our time. No one knows where they went, or how to get there… except me.”

Tham was grinning ear to ear now. Jenny felt sick. Her heart was thumping in her ears.

Professor Rolfe opened the small box and showed a black scroll to the audience.

“Rassilon… the first time lord. He was the beginning of it all. I have here one of his scrolls. plus the location of their planet that is in the perpetual war with the Daleks.”

“Impossible!” screamed one of the guests.

“No… I found this.” he said, and yanked the cloth away.

Jenny couldn’t believe what she saw.

The dead husk of Foreman. Vines had creeped in, dirt covered the golden chassis. She could see where a laser torch was used to pry open the front. The man in front of her dissected her friend.

“I found the scroll inside this Dalek.” The professor continued. “His databanks were badly damaged, but I was able to decipher where he came from, and leaned he was jettisoned from the time locked region. I was able to get the codes from that and will include all of these pieces together.”

“Tham… I…” Jenny choked. She felt sick, she wanted to scream, cry, run away, anything. She sat, shaking all over while Tham squeezed her hand.

“You will sit, and do nothing.” He ordered. Leaning over he whispered into her ear. “Your dead friend stole that scroll from my collection. I shall add it back and see that rotten husk is displayed in my museum. I won. The professor has the coordinates, I’ll be able to go home and lead our people into a new age, after I clean house and restore order. Everyone will worship me as the living god of the time lords!”

“How?” Jenny asked. Her mind was spinning. “Why didn’t you go back and get him?”

“I tried, but he was gone. That ancestor of his must have moved him and buried the body, I searched for months. Then I found the professor here was interested in Daleks, so I sent an anonymous note, saying where there might be one buried, and let him find it for me.”

“So, to sum up the offering. We have the location to Gallifrey, a Scroll of Rassilon, and the Dalek who apparently stole them and escaped the pocket dimension.” The professor concluded. He turned over the podium to the insectoid and stood next to the Dalek husk

“May we have an opening bid?”  

The room was in an uproar, everyone was throwing out their best offers and fighting each other through a massive bidding war. The creature who ate the Broyk was so enraged at being out bid, he picked up an assistant and ate him whole. Tham sat next to her with a grin on his face and was quiet. When all was settled down. The final bid was literally an entire galaxy.

“The final bid is the galactic system owned by the Smarnic brothers. Any other offers?”

Tham stood, and motioned her to stand as well. He silently motioned to her neck and earrings.

“Blood crystals from Sahelian 7.” He said cooly. “So named for the… well murder… that happened to anyone who owned them, and how they mysteriously vanished after being acquired. We all know Sahelian 7 is no longer with us, and the mine dried up mere days after being found. I can assure you, these are the only blood crystals in existence… since I destroyed the rest. They very well earned their name. You all know these crystals longevity properties, and I assure you they are real. I was the one who bought, drained and destroyed that mine.. and planet. The proof is here, as I am obviously over four galaxy rotations old.”

The room was silenced, and everyone looked at Jenny and the necklace and earrings she wore. All she could do was smile and hear her heart throb in her ears.

The Professor whispered something to the grasshopper auctioneer, and nodded.

“Sold.”

***

Tham placed Foreman’s body in his museum. He kept whispering to himself and checking the Rassilon scroll the entire time they were back in the TARDIS. He ignored Jenny once Foreman was in place and left her alone for the first time in months. She saw the lifeless body and tenderly touched the golden eyestalk and burst into tears.

She saw where the impact point was, and pried open the chassis to the core where the one eyed globular being that was Foreman would have been. The hole passed right through that compartment. He would have been vaporized instantly.

Jenny couldn’t hold it anymore. She curled up around the base of the Dalek and let go any remaining hope she had that he survived and wailed. She saw Tham standing in the doorway, watching her for a moment, and left. She didn’t care. She cried herself to sleep, curled up in front of the only friend she ever had, or trusted.

A thought occurred to her about the location of Gallifrey that Tham was now the owner of. When she took him there, He told her he didn’t peek… Did Foreman lie to her?

  
  


 

  
  
  


 

 

 


	15. Rescue

Jenny didn’t remember or care how long she held the decayed husk of Foreman. The Master had been gone for some time, consumed with the scrolls of Rassilon and trying to break through the time locked Gallifrey. The last secret she refused to give to him was no longer hers so he had no use for her and had cast her aside… for now.

She closed her eyes and moved into a more comfortable spot when she saw a red blinking light. Sitting up, she peered inside the husk, memories of their systems flooded her brain. A tiny transistor was soldered on that was not part of the Dalek systems. She prodded it with her finger, and the flashes changed from a steady blink to random pulses.

Not random… it was Dalek code, old code Foreman taught her for their mission. It said one word.

Wait.

Jenny’s hearts raced in her chest. She immediately tore the blinking circuit out, incase Tham inspects the husk again.

“Jenny!” The Master shouted from the doorway. “I let you indulge enough.. Come stand with me at the controls and help.”

Jenny’s face hardened with determination. All she had to go by was the message left in Foreman’s body. Did the other Daleks find out what happened? She couldn’t make any sense of what was going on, it could be a future message from herself or from her Mother. She always had a head for these sorts of things. Jenny wished she had the luxury of attending The Academy, they taught you how to sort these things out.

“Jenny!” Tham screamed again. Jenny stood and wiped her tears away. She put on her plastic smile and walked over to Tham and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you, love, for letting me say goodbye to my old life. What do you need help with?” Jenny said, following Tham to a control board. he was typing frantically at a keyboard and complex algorithms cascaded across the screen. Jenny didn’t understand it, but knew what it meant. Foreman had looked, and these were changed. Did Foreman foresee this happening and set up a trap for Tham before he died?

“These coordinates, they don’t make sense. How did you get this to work? You always did get the better marks in Time Mechanics.” The Master chuckled and kissed her cheek. Jenny repressed a shudder and looked over his shoulder to take in the information. She was getting better at tapping into her father’s memories, and she let his influence guide her hands as they danced across the keys, fixing some of the mistakes and setting the Tardis on it’s course.

“It’s amazing watching you work.” Tham whispered in her ear. His hands began to rub her hips. Her arms were trembling, and she closed her eyes to fight back any retaliation as Tham pawed at her. “I am so happy we get to share this experience. I have always felt a connection with you. You are my best friend. Now, once we destroy the Daleks and save Gallifrey, I’ll toss out the old codgers running the place, and take over as the new Rassilon. I’ll have you as my wife, and you shall be my queen. Our world will become perfect as we rule all of time.”  

Jenny felt him slip her dress off and kiss her shoulders. She quivered all over as she stood over the control console naked with Tham caressing her. His touch was electric and she hated that her body seemed to lust after him at times. Tham began to bite her neck and claw down her back when the Tardis shook, knocking Tham over. Jenny barely held onto the controls.

“I think we broke through” Jenny said, pulling her dress backup and covering herself.

“Already?” Tham said, clearly disappointed. “Well, we don’t have to rush…”

Another eruption shook the Tardis.

“Really? We’re probably being attacked by the Daleks” Jenny commented and pulled up the outside viewscreen. Tham rushed over and shoved her aside.

“We’re… here. I can see the frequencies of Gallifrey! but… We’re in some sort of ship.” Tham grinned from ear to ear. “A Dalek ship… Perfect!”

There was another barrage that shook the Tardis. Jenny looked at the viewscreen and saw the ship was surrounded by an army of Daleks. They fired barrage after barrage, somehow their arm cannons are actually damaging the Tardis.

“We need to stop them before they destroy the ship!” Jenny screamed.

“I know! Don’t state the obvious!” Tham screamed.

“You are surrounded, Time Lord. Exit the ship or be exterminated!” A red colored Dalek ordered, as it rolled to the front of the battalion.

“Well?” Jenny said.

“Stay behind me, They can’t hurt me.” Tham said confidently. “I still have a treaty with them.”

Tham confidently walked to the doors and threw them opened. He walked out with a sort of swagger and extended his arms to the Daleks.

They were in an sort of hanger. The whole room was almost a sphere. Everything was white and the edges of the sphere was a tier, like a choir seating. Each space was occupied by a silver Dalek who’s eyestalk and arm cannon was trained on them.

“Greetings! I am The Master, your ally in this Time War… I would appreciate if you would stop shooting at my ship.”

“Designation… The Master has been confirmed.” The red Dalek replied. The eyestalk trained on Jenny.

“The Doctor!” It screamed and the entire battalion opened fire. Tham barely had time to duck while Jenny flead into the ship

“STOP STOP STOP!” Tham screamed. “Don’t hurt her! She’s under my protection!”

The Daleks quit firing and looked at Tham. He stood up and dusted himself off, and gave the hundred or so Daleks a grin. The red Dalek rolled forward in front of Tham and looked up at him.

“How can you help us win the time war?” It said with it’s electric monotone voice.

“Well… it’s simple, I….” Tham began to say as he motioned Jenny over to him. When Jenny stood next to him his face was a mix of surprise and agony. She looked down and was shocked at what she saw. A humanoid hand was sticking out of the red Dalek chassis, holding a long and jagged sword. The other end of the sword was protruding out the other side of Tham’s back. He struck Tham directly in between his two hearts, rupturing the connecting systems.

The dome of the red Dalek rolled away and a dark haired man with stunning brown eyes stood. His face filled with hatred and rage. he grabbed Tham and pulled him deeper onto the sword and began to wiggle it back and forth. Tham could only stare into his face with fear.

“I told you I would Exterminate you.” The man said, and let go of the sword. Tham collapsed on the floor, blood pooling around him. He gasped wordlessly like a fish out of water, and began to drag himself to the Tardis. Jenny was dumbstruck and couldn’t take in what just happened.

The rest of the Dalek chassis opened up and the man strode from the machine and pulled out a wicked looking blaster. Jenny knew it was a biomass disrupter. Should Tham be shot with that, no regeneration would bring him back.

Tham’s face was utter terror as he watched his executioner slowly approach. Jenny’s mind flashed and saw the massive disruption his death would cause the timeline. There was so much more The Master had to do, but she didn’t care. She would deal with the consequences.

“Jenny…” Tham choked, and pleaded with her. She stood quietly, her gaze filled with as much hate as she could muster. She would not stop what would happen.

The Master was at the edge of the Tardis door. The blood smear he left behind showing his long and crawl away from the man with the disrupter. He rolled over and pulled himself inside, the sword was larger than the doorway, and he was stuck.

“I want you to remember I killed you. I know I can't… not yet. But know that I’ve tracked you down to the end of your life, and I am the face of your execution.” The man grabbed the sword and ripped it out. Tham screamed and gurgled blood. his face grew white as his body went limp. Blood stopped pouring out of the two wounds and the man shoved him inside the Tardis and shut the door. he nodded to one of the Daleks and the Tardis vanished.

“I hope you didn’t leave anything onboard you wanted.” The man said with a smile.

Jenny just sad down in the middle of the room. The man sat next to her.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know.”    

“I… who are you?” Was all Jenny could ask.

“Oh!...” he said and rushed to his Dalek shell. He rummaged around inside and held it behind him. “I couldn’t do this with Tham around, it would have ruined the whole thing…”  He was grinning ear to ear when he pulled out a brown fedora and placed it on his head.

Jenny’s brain decided to take a nap.

***

Jenny woke to the sound of a sweet melody she’s never heard before. She was in a soft bed, the lights were dim, but enough to see by. Next to her sat the man in the fedora. he seemed to be writing on a pad of paper.

“This was so much easier before... “ he said with a smile. “I… used to be able to write...faster. I miss it sometimes. Even now, after all these years, I find myself crawling inside to feel safe.”

“Foreman?” Jenny said with disbelief. He approached and held her hand.

“Does Jenny still like Foreman?” He grinned. She burst into tears and grabbed him. Her sudden attack caused Foreman to lose balance and tumbled into the bed with her. Jenny refused to let him go, and he silently held her as she wept in his arms for the rest of the night.

***

Jenny felt rested, but she lay in bed and stared at the sleeping man next to her. Was it another trick? Was Tham behind this? Foreman’s brown eyes opened and gave her a warm smile.

“I know, you have lots of questions. Are you hungry?” Foreman asked. Jenny nodded.

The door to her room opened and a Dalek entered pushing a cart full of breakfast foods.

“Daren... “ Foreman groaned. “What did we talk about?

Jenny’s brain almost took another nap, when the Dalek dome opened up and another brown haired humanoid stood and saluted.

“Sir!” he said smartly. “I… really don’t feel comfortable yet.”

Foreman sighed and waved him away. The man ducked back into the Dalek module and rolled away.

“They don’t like to be out of their armor yet. It’s a huge adjustment.”

“How?” Jenny asked, taking a bite of some fruit she didn’t recognize. It tasted like a blueberry and mango

“I figured Tham was going to kill me at some point. One of the upgrades the gold armor has is a failsafe for such an attack. It’s rather painful, but it encases our main form in a sphere and drops us into an out of place area near the foot of the machine. We’re ripped from our control area, so most of our protrusions are torn off, leaving evidence of our death behind.”

“I’m so sorry…” Jenny whispered.

“It’s fine.” Foreman grinned. “I signaled David and was able to talk to my ancestor through the intercom, he’s name is Dal’ Moch by the way. He heaved my corpse into the ship and we made a side trip to New New York and visited Catlin.”

“Oh Foreman, I wish I was there for you.” Jenny said, resting her hand on his.

“There’s a bit of a loop here, and I’m no Time Lord, but you were there. You said you had to be there for me, but didn’t tell me anything because of ‘spoilers’. I still don’t fully understand that word.” Foreman said. Jenny chuckled.

“So. You were regenerated… and then what?” Jenny asked, taking a bite of what looked like a fruit tart. It was bitter, but somewhat refreshing.

“Well, I dropped off Dal’ Moch, who swore secrecy of the events… and started a recruitment.”

“I surmised…” Jenny said.     

“I wanted to reclaim our heritage, as thinkers, philosophers, and artists.” Foreman said.

“The music i woke up too…” Jenny said

“I wrote it for you.” Foreman said. “I… wrote it before, but never knew how to play it for you. Then, I was… confused. The connection you made with me was alien. It went against everything I stood for. Most of us still feel this way. I have had years to sort them out with the help of Catlin’s team. Davros was correct about you. You are our savior, just not like he envisioned.”

“So, how did you get your recruits?” Jenny asked. “And where are we?”

“We are orbiting Gallifrey, but out of sync. None of the others can detect us, and we can’t interfere with them. I knew you’d fix my calculations when I sent the message to you.” Foreman continued. “I decided I wanted to help the others. I took David and attacked a dalek scout ship. I destroyed it’s commander and repurposed the armor you saw. I isolated each Dalek and disconnected them from their network, and… tortured them.”

Jenny saw the shamed look on Foreman’s face. She wanted to say something, but didn’t know what to do.

“I bombarded them with art, music, and culture that’s been banished from our society for millennia. Many self terminated, but the few who remained, i was able to convince to regenerate. I took each one to Catlin, who set up a Dalek ward for the process. Once I established my generals, we began to raid other ships and rehabilitate as many as we can. We know we can’t save them all, some are just too far gone.”

“I know this is difficult Foreman, lets take a break. Play a song for me?” Jenny asked. Foreman smiled and walked to a closet and pulled out a stringed instrument. It looked like a harp and a french horn had a baby. Foreman sat down, placed his lips on the instrument, and played a haunting melody. The song was a mix of harp and low bass. It struck her soul on so many levels, Mozart and Bach would weep listening to this. She laid her head down on the bed and watched him play, her lids getting heavier till she fell asleep.

 


	16. Rejuvination

Jenny sat in a hard plastic chair in a white operating room. The nursing staff of New New York Hospital flurried around like worker bees, filling a large tank with synthetic amniotic fluids and various other concoctions. Catelyn rested her hand on her shoulder and gave her a toothy grin that meant to reassure her, but had the exact opposite effect. Next to her stood a confused looking Dal, who seemed to be more relaxed than she, while in her lap was a sleeping mass of flesh with one eye… Foreman. She absentmindedly stroked the pulsating creature with her fingers, tracing over the various lines and cracks of it’s greyish brown skin. She could feel his pulse. Jenny felt a pain in her chest. This was the last time Foreman will be like this, and part of her was revolted by his form, this was who he was inside the mechanical monstrosity she picked up all th

Jenny sat in a hard plastic chair in a white operating room. The nursing staff of New New York Hospital flurried around like worker bees, filling a large tank with synthetic amniotic fluids and various other concoctions. Catelyn rested her hand on her shoulder and gave her a toothy grin that meant to reassure her, but had the exact opposite effect.

Next to her stood a confused looking Dal, who seemed to be more relaxed than she, while in her lap was a sleeping mass of flesh with one eye… Foreman. She absentmindedly stroked the pulsating creature with her fingers, tracing over the various lines and cracks of it’s greyish brown skin. She could feel his pulse.

Jenny felt a pain in her chest. This was the last time Foreman will be like this, and part of her was revolted by his form, this was who he was inside the mechanical monstrosity she picked up all that time ago.

She had recovered in Foreman’s ship… well, David, but he upgraded it to the point where the ship itself looked nothing like she could remember. Apparently, she gave him permission later. Foreman didn’t want to come back and be here. He said the first time was hard enough, but she wanted to be the first one he saw when he stepped out whole.

Catlin seemed confused when she arrived just ten minutes before Foreman and her ship did. She wanted to tell everyone everything, but knew she had to let Foreman come up with his plan, and being almost destroyed by Tham was too much for him to handle. All she could do was cradle him in her arm and tell him it was ok. She felt so helpless. The Cats were quick to get him to a stable state, and allowed her to sit with him in the prep room while they set up the equipment.

Forman opened up his only eye and looked up at her. There was a clicking gurgle from his beak.

“Shhh, it’s ok.” Jenny said. “Just rest, we’ll talk later.” His eye drooped closed and she could feel his body relax.

“It’s time” Catlin said, and took Foreman from her. “This is a dangerous procedure. I spent four years devising this process and since we have uncontaminated DNA we should get your friend back to his natural form. The process can be... painful, and we’ll do our best to manage it, but too much pain killer can cause him to arrest.”  

Jenny just nodded and covered her mouth. Catlin carried Foreman up a set of winding stairs that wrapped around the giant tube filled with amniotic cocktail and unceremoniously dumped him inside.

“I am glad I can help… to think we become.. like this? Why?” the Dal next to him said. “It’s terrifying.”

“I wish I could tell you… I wish I could change all of it. You saw, with The Master, what could happen when you interfere with the course of events. Besides, rant and rave all you want no one will believe you, they’ll lock you up or kill you as a heretic. Live your life to its fullest once you return, knowing that the atrocities of your descendants will be redeemed one day, and you were the catalyst.”

“I shall remember this day…” the Dal said with a nod.

Foreman’s mass of flesh floated in the brownish fluid. his one eye tore opened and a high pitched shriek reverberated from the tank. Jenny was horrified to see the eye began to misshape, and pull apart into two while his overall form went from that of symmetry to having mounds of flesh began to bubble up and sprout around him. It was too hard to watch, Jenny closed her eyes, but continued to listen to Foreman scream.

It seemed like hours until the screams stopped. Jenny looked at Catlin who nodded back at her. He was OK. Jenny looked at the tank to see a head, two arms and legs. His hands were pads of flesh, and his whole body was covered in flesh bubbles, they seemed to rise and fall inside, and rearrange their mass rapidly. Foreman must be unconscious.

“It will be soon.” Catlin assured. “He’s doing quite well. We’ve treated others with genetic mutations, some quite damaged, but none as damaged as a Dalek. We are in uncharted waters with this.

Jenny knew it would be ok… but there could still be hiccups, even though she had already been through this with Foreman when he picked her up, if she was not careful she could still change the timeline and rupture everything.

***

Jenny woke with a start. She had fallen asleep in her plastic chair. She looked over at Foreman, he was shaping up fine. His more delicate features had began to form, and his eyes were opened! Jenny walked up to the tank and put her hand on top. Foreman raised his own hand and rested it over hers. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, and his hand went slack, back to the side of his arm.

“What happened?” Jenny screamed, “What happened?”

“He’s ok… just his muscles are not fully formed, he exerted himself too much too soon. The computer gave him a tranquilizer to put him back to sleep in case he tears any new ligaments.”

Jenny sat back down and closed her eyes.

***.

“It’s time.”

Jenny started to Catlin’s touch. She looked at the clock on the wall, it’s been fifty seven hours. Standing up to stretch, she heard her back pop in several places. She twisted and stretched her arms to get blood flowing back to her sleeping appendages where pins and needles began to dance.  

“How did it go?” Jenny asked.

“Very difficult. We… had to augment him.” she said with a worried look. “The Daleks have cybernetic implants, removing those would kill him. Most of them are directly in the brain, which was the least altered of the process. He can still connect to the Dalek equipment like he normally would, but future generations will be rid of these monstrosities. I wish to say it was a full success, but he is still a part of the Dalek intelligence, even if he is a rogue.”

“I see.” Jenny said, rubbing her neck.

“From what I can tell,” Catlin said with a grin. “You've been through quite an ordeal. He has a few more hours left, come with me. I want to give you a good checkup.”

Jenny was too tired to argue and followed Catlin to another room.

***

Catlin seemed much too eager to scan, poke, and prod her. Jenny knew the only other Time Lord she had gotten to examine was her father, so this checkup probably was more for curiosity than ensuring she was healthy.

Jenny sat across a desk while Catlin reviewed scans and records. The glimmer of her eyes twinkled as she reviewed the data. When she came across one screen, Jenny noticed a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth, and her gleeful expression changed to … something.

“Oh.” Catlin said in a serious tone. “Oh… Jenny.”

“What?” Jenny asked. Panic started to grip her chest. Was she going to die because she’s a clone? Was she going to melt away since Time Lord physiology is unreplicatable?

“There’s no… easy way to say this…” Catlin said, fussing with her hands. “But I checked three times now, and it’s not a mistake…”

“Tell me or i’ll skin you!” Jenny growled.

“You’re… with child.”

“I’m… what?”

“Um… pregnant. I have no… data on gestational rates of Time Ladies… due to the longevity of your species… I can’t predict how long… I thought you reproduced through the Looms?”

“Looms are carried by the Gallifreyan houses… I wouldn’t have access… and I didn’t think Time Lords COULD have children the traditional way… That’s why they had the looms!” Jenny said. She was panting and her palms were sweating. She needed some air, she couldn’t breath.

“You are a clone of a time lord. From my examination of your father, he is indeed rendered sterile, as most Time Lords are according to our discussions. This is through the overuse of the house looms. You, on the other hand, are a clone of him, and cloned by human technology. They would have ensured you were... viable.”

“I already told you I’d been spending a few months with Foreman after we’ve fixed him… we had been…”

“No, his DNA is much too different, Functionally, mating would work, but genetically would yield no results.” Catlin said, her gaze drifted as she worked on some unknown problem in her head. “I wonder if we could change that… He’s still a viable subject.”

“NO!” Jenny screamed. “NO! You do not do anything more to him!”

“Alright…” Catlin said calmly. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but fell silent.

Jenny could feel her hearts pounding in her ears. Just when she was rid of him…

“Tham…” She whispered. Catlin nodded slightly and began typing on her computer.

“What shall we do?” Catlin asked.

“What are you… asking me” Jenny asked. She didn’t want to think.

“Shal I work up a prenatal schedule for you or would you like to explore other options?” Catlin said matter of factly.

Jenny’s mind went numb… carry the child of The Master? Other options? Catlin looked at her screen and smiled.

“He’s almost ready, we can revisit this another time. that’s what’s nice about having you as a patient, we don’t really have to worry about scheduling.” Catlin smiled and opened the door to her office, she allowed Jenny to walk out first and they made their way back to the genetic reconstruction chamber.

“Foreman’s going to go on a bit of a crusade after this, I’ll secure some funds for the hospital to build a Dalek reconstruction wing.” Jenny said, almost monotone. “You’re going to be getting quite a few more patients in the next few years.”

Catlin nodded and took her place with the rest of her staff. Foreman looked just the way she remembered. White skin and black hair with piercing brown eyes. She reached under her chair for a gift wrapped package and waited for the tank to drain.

As the fluid was sucked out of the tank, Cat-nurses rotated the tube horizontal, so Foreman was laying on his back. They opened the top of the tank, pulled his still unconscious body to a gurney, wheeled him to the recovery room, and hooked him to various machines.

“You can wait with him. Once the sedatives wear off he should wake up. Now, it may be hard for him to talk, he’s never really used his voice before, but he can hear you.” Catlin said with a smile. “We’ll talk about your other situation later.”

Jenny sat next to the sleeping Foreman and held his hand. It was familiar to her, but her touch was the first he had experienced. Still sleeping, Jenny saw him wince at the unfamiliar sensation. Determined, she grabbed his hand and decided to never let go.

***

“Jennn… eee?”

The slurred sound of her name forced woke her up. She had laid her head on his stomach to listen to his new heartbeat and must have fallen asleep.

“Oh my god!” Jenny sat up with a start. “I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?”

“N...n...nooo. I...mmmm. Ooo Kay.” Foreman smiled. “Th...is… iiiiissss… hhhar… harrd w...i..th ouuuut mmmmy c...c...c...ma...cheeeene”

“Shh. you don’t have to talk.” Jenny said, and put her finger on his lips. She handed him the package she brought.

Foreman smiled and looked at her. She motioned with her hands to tear at it. It pained her to watch him fumble with his new appendages, he seemed like a newborn trapped in a grown body. She could see his frustration on his face, so she helped him open the box. Inside was a brown Fedora. He grinned and put it on.

“You look dashing…” Jenny said with a grin. She held his hand and gave him a serious look. Foreman nodded that he understood to listen to what she was going to say.

“I had to be here for this, but right now, i’m still with Tham. You rescued me so I could be here. I can’t tell you how, or when you do, but just know that I came back to keep my promise to be here for you.”

Foreman smiled

“Ssshhhhppppoooilllerrrs…. Iiii…. goooot… iiiiit.” he slurred. Without warning, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to him. She felt warm arms wrap around and embrace her.

“Iiii pppprrraaacccttissed…. wwwhhiiillllee yyyyoooouuuuu sssssssllepppppt” Foreman said, holding her.

“Practiced what?” Jenny asked. She looked deep into his dark brown eyes, he gave her a smile and touched her cheek.

“I… love… you.” he said with perfect clarity.  



	17. The Decision

Jenny stirred her chai tea and looked up at the time. Four past three. She wondered if River got her message, as her mother was quite punctual… even though this was her second visit.

“I’m here! I’m here!” Came a shout from behind her. Jenny looked to the voice and saw River Song holding a large arm bag, wearing a floral print dress and a brown overcoat. “Your father would not shut up… Oh his sweet boyish face and brown hair…”

“Is Dad…?” Jenny asked, but River shook her head no.

“Before your time… it would complicate things, sadly.” River huffed and sat down across from her.

They were in a tiny cafe in Italy, the same one she met her mother last time. The waiter came by and took River’s order and left. River pulled out a blue journal and flipped through some pages absently.

“It seems like we’re where we should be… That’s quite unusual, at least for our ilk.” River said and shrugged.

“What do you mean by that?” Jenny asked taking a sip of her drink.

“Well… I’ve met you already… and you’ve met me… and we’re both one and one. Usually, perceptions go in different directions and such.” River said and began to grin ear to ear. “How exciting! I don’t know what you’re going to talk to me about! Oh dear, this is somewhat nerve racking. I’m usually more prepared. How about I leave and come back after it’s happened, so I can give you some better motherly advice?” River said, looking around as if expecting someone to show up, only to look disappointed. “Oh… I guess I didn’t.”

“I… really need someone to talk to.” Jenny said, grabbing her distracted mother’s hand. River took Jenny’s hand with her spare one and squeezed it, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Anything you need, love” River said.

“I don’t really know how to even start… so much has happened.” Jenny said.

“Well, as strange as it is coming from me, lets start at the beginning.” River said.

Jenny recounted everything to her. The months of being abducted by The Master, the regeneration of the Daleks, and even about her latest surprise. River never interrupted, and quietly listened, never letting go of Jenny’s hand.

Jenny was surprised how much better she felt, now that she was able to talk to someone about it.

“Well, that is a lot to take in… and we’re sure it’s…” River said.

“yes… Catlin was quite sure.” Jenny interrupted. “Just the thought of him being… inside me…”

“What do you want to do?” River asked, Jenny thought there was more to her tone. Something sharp and warning.

“My first instinct is to get rid of it. The Master is pure evil.” Jenny said.

“Yes, we both know the type of man he is.” River said cooly. “You and I both know the probabilities of the merger of two Gallifreyans. A child is not one to be taken lightly, as the ripples of a Time Lord birth will send shockwaves everywhere. I won’t be one to tell you what to do, just… understand a child is not their parents. I grew up without a mother, and so have you… I wish we could break this curse of ours.” River said sadly. She took a deep breath and blew it out, put on a big smile and leaned on the table with her elbows, holding her head up with her palms.

“So, tell me more about this man you have now… Foreman?” River grinned. Jenny smiled, her mother was good at changing the subject.

“Well, he’s a Dalek, like we said earlier, but now he’s a Dal. Right now, he’s off liberating his people.” Jenny said. She smiled at the thought of Foreman’s words to her in the recovery room. She left him soon after, feeling guilty that she didn’t say it back. Her mind was swimming with everything that had happened to her, and just didn’t know how to react.

When she arrived on David, and met up with Foreman again, he just gave her a smile and hug, and then thanked her for everything she had done for him. It was then, she closed the cabin door, and repeated the words to him, and had then shown him her commitment to them.

“I’m rather proud of you.” River said. “You’ve really starting to make something of yourself now. The Dalek wing at the hospital sounds wonderful. I hope you save as many as you can.”

“What would father say about me?” Jenny laughed. She knew how much her father hated Daleks, to think she was in a relationship with one would send him over the edge.

“He’d love you, and understand.”  River said with a smile. “His anger towards them is out of love. He loves everything, and to watch them be destroyed… hurts him so much. he would be proud that you’re rejuvenating them.”

Jenny and River spent the rest of the day talking, and looking at the shops. When the sun began to set, she wished her mother farewell and waved as a blue box disappeared with a familiar rumble.

She walked to her small ship and took off as well, to meet with David who'd been in orbit the whole time.

***

“Just talk to me.” Foreman said “As much as I appreciate your distractions… I can’t help but feel you’re avoiding me.”

Jenny was back on her ship, in bed, with Foreman’s arms wrapped tightly around her. Foreman’s keen observation resulted in her burrowing deeper into Foreman’s chest to avoid his gaze. She shook her head no and Foreman left it at that.

Being held by Foreman kept her calm. She withdrew and focused on the life inside her, mapping out it’s timeline, going over all the variables. She was appalled at where the life came from, but Catlin and her mother made very good points. There was something special about this child. Time Lords could not reproduce “naturally”.  What bugged her the most, was her father’s memories pulled on her, but she couldn’t access them, there was some sort of block that prevented her from seeing some things.

Jenny sighed and pulled Foreman’s arms around her tighter. Should she tell him? Should she lie? What if she says it’s his? After all they’ve been through… could she lie to him? Would he throw her away knowing she’s carrying The Master’s child? It was too much for her, and she let go and began to sob. Rolling over, she buried her face in Foreman’s chest again and squeezed him as hard as she could.

“Jenny… My Jenny… It’s ok” Foreman whispered. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. “Tell me anything. I’m here and I’ll listen.”

“You’re going to leave me… you’re going to hate me.” she sobbed.

“My place is by your side.” Foreman whispered. “Nothing you say could ever take me from you”

Jenny felt like she was suffocating. She pushed Foreman away from her and sat up. She couldn’t get enough air and felt sick. Foreman scooted over to rub her back, but she pushed him away.

“I… I can’t… it’s inside me… he’s still here… a part of him is still here…” Jenny sobbed holding her stomach. “You are going to hate me… leave me… I can’t… I don’t want to lie to you.... you’ve done so… much for me… ”

“Jenny… I want to understand what you’re saying, but I’m still… new.” Foreman said calmly and took her had. Jenny’s sobbing intensified. “Please, just tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m carrying The Master’s child, Foreman!” Jenny screamed. Foreman’s face was stone, and his hand slid away from Jenny. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and just had to be away. Jenny grabbed her robe, threw it on, and ran out of their room.

***

Jenny was curled up in the cargo hold, huddled between a few drums of… she didn’t know what. What had Foreman been doing all these years? The cargo hold was one of the few places left on David that looked like her old ship. She missed her ship, the quiet days out in space… being alone and only dealing with people when she needed money. She banged her head against the hull wishing she could go back. If she never took aboard that Dalek, none of this would be happening.

She probably devastated Foreman. The one person in her life who cared about her enough to save her from the prison of The Master, and she screamed at him. He’s probably going to cast her away as tainted. She squeezed her eyes shut and rested her head against the hull. She felt strong arms wrap around her and hold her. She wanted to pull away, but she didn’t have the energy.

“That’s my corner.” Foreman said. “You put me there because I was a Bad Dalek.”

Jenny sniffed and gave Foreman a chuckle. “I’m bad now. I know you don’t want me now. I’m broken”

“I was broken when you found me.” Foreman said. “You put me back together. You made me whole. I refuse to believe anything that’s a part of you is bad.”

Jenny felt Foreman move his hands from her arms to clutching her belly. “Nothing of you is bad. This is our child, Catlin made a mistake. She simply made me… compatable.”

“No… no.. I asked and she…” Jenny said.

Foreman shushed her and turned her to face him. “Catlin made a mistake, that’s our child.”

Jenny stared into his deep brown eyes and his soft face, his look of determination matched the same look he gave The Master as he retreated back into the Tardis. There was no arguing with that look. Jenny nodded.

“I need to see Catlin and get on a pre-natal plan.” Jenny said. “She’s going to have a field day with me, being the first clone Time Lord to have given birth naturally for who knows how long.”

Jenny closed her eyes and rested her head on Foreman’s chest. “We need a place to raise a child… not on a ship, but a real home.”

“Where do you want to go? We have plenty of resources.” Foreman asked.

“I always liked Earth...”  

 

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

“Are you sure about this?” Foreman asked as he landed the shuttle. “Why… now? It’s so… primitive?”

“1950’s England is perfect. We’ve just passed World War 2, and there’s going to be huge leaps in technology in the next fifty years. And besides, I like humans.” Jenny said with a smile.

“You do… or your father?” Foreman quipped. Jenny slugged Foreman in the arm and shot him a warning look.

“Ok, do you remember everything?” Jenny asked nervously and looked at her clothes. She wore a pink floral dress and a yellow scarf in her hair. Foreman was dressed in a black wool suit and tie with his trademark Fedora. Foreman kept pulling at his neck and fidgeting.

“Yes… I remember, How do humans wear this? I feel like I am back in my tank.” Foreman complained.

“Hey, I don’t feel too comfortable either, but this is the fashion of the time. I think the whole dress situation is barbaric, but we are doing this for our child and we will raise him or her in a safe and well mannered society.” Jenny lectured.

“And… you trust these humans to deliver said child?” Foreman retorted.

“No… We’ll have Catlin come to do a home delivery.” Jenny said. “We’ve already talked about it, and she has some hologram technology that will allow her to look human enough to come and visit.”

“Sounds like you have everything planned.” Foreman said with a chuckle. “The rough and tumble Jenny, who put a Dalek in the corner, is now going to play human.”

“Why is it so bad?” Jenny asked. “I just want some peace. When I was cloned, all I knew was to fight and kill in that damned war. When my father ended the conflict, I had no place in this universe. I hid inside David for who knows how long. Then I met you. I found out that I was alone, and I didn’t like it. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to be surrounded by friends and family. I want that for our child. I want her away from all of this.”

“You could take it to Gallifrey, before the time war. It could attend the Academy.” Foreman said. “Our child will be a Time Lord.”

“Maybe someday. I won’t deny our baby’s heritage, but there’s plenty of time for that.” Jenny said. She smacked Foreman’s arm. “Stop calling our baby ‘it’!”

“You won’t have Catlin tell us what it will be, so I have no other way to say it.” Foreman said, rubbing his arm.

“Just say our baby.” Jenny smiled. “I can’t hear it enough, especially from you.” Jenny’s smile faded slightly. Looking at her watch, she shot up and grabbed her handbag. “We’re running late! Hurry!”

***

Jenny and Foreman held hands and looked around the empty flat. There were dark wood floors throughout the space. It had a large kitchen, icebox, stove, and all the amenities one would need to start a life. With two bedrooms and two bathrooms, Jenny loved that it felt about the size of David, not counting the cargo bay.

“And the park is just around the corner?” Jenny asked the landlord.

“Yes, and the schools are quite good.” The elderly man said. “Unless you’ll want your child to attend a private one.”

“Why… this?” Foreman asked, looking around the living room. “It’s small. We can easily afford an estate… with some land and domesticated companion life forms...er..animals.”

Jenny smiled and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I… want to be close to people. The neighbors seem nice, and the thought of a huge place like that feels… suffocating and isolated. I don’t want that for our child. I want to hear her laughing and playing with her mates. I want sleep overs, and cookies, and shopping, and all the good stuff moms do.” Jenny said, rubbing her belly. It was barely noticeable, but she could feel the life growing inside her.

“So nice to see a young married couple paving their way for the future.” The old landlord said. “The children are the future.”

“Or the past…” Foreman muttered, Jenny gave him a swift punch in the arm.

“So, how long have you two been married?” The landlord said pleasantly.

“Huh?” Foreman asked quizzically. Jenny gave him another hard punch in the shoulder and smiled.

“Oh he’s such a kidder, it’s been a few years.” Jenny laughed.

“Ah, my boy, so what do you do?” The landlord asked.

“I’m currently leading a splinter group of reformed Daleks in the hopes of reclaiming our heritage.” Foreman said matter of factly. The landlord looked taken aback and eyed him suspiciously.

“You’re not IRA?” the landlord said nervously. Jenny smiled and stomped on Foreman’s foot.

“He’s just kidding.” Jenny said with a chuckle.

“Yes… I am kidding. I am an exterminator.” Foreman said matter of factly. The Landlord looked rather confused. Jenny hugged Foreman’s arm and gave him another kick. Was he doing this on purpose?

“My husband is a textile manufacturer. He has to travel quite often. He’s been spending the last few months in China and India, and seems to have picked up their sense of humor. I’m still trying to understand it myself.”

“I see… yes, very good.” The landlord said. “So, we need you two to fill out some forms, and the flat is yours.”

Jenny and Foreman sat down and filled out the various documents. One of the reasons Jenny picked this time period, is that records are easily manipulated, and a few strategic time hops allowed her to file her and Foreman’s birth certificates at the appropriate times, giving them citizenship. With a final pen stroke, Foreman finished his form and handed it to the landlord. Jenny’s stomach sank in fear. Did he remember everything she told him.

“Very good. Dale K. Foreman…  yes… everything seems to be in order. Should you have furnishing ready, you can start moving in tomorrow. Rent’s due on the first of the month.” The landlord said and handed Foreman two sets of keys.

Foreman took them  and smiled. Jenny finished her paperwork and handed it to the landlord. She needed to get Foreman to sign up for utilities, and go shopping for furniture. they needed to open a bank account, set up a savings account for college, and make a few investments. She wanted to start out in an apartment, but as her child gets older, a bigger house was part of the plan.

“Well, that went well?” Foreman said as they walked down the landing and onto the sidewalk.

“Exterminator?” Jenny hissed. “What was that all about?”

“I… thought it was funny.” Foreman said with a grin and kissed her forehead. “What’s next?”

“Now… we need to figure out how to turn the ten pounds of gold I have in my purse into currency without looking suspicious.” Jenny said with a sigh. “One of the downsides of this time period, is the currency system is almost incomprehensible”

***

Jenny hung her final picture in the baby’s room. It was a picture of Winnie the Pooh and his honey pot. She looked around triumphantly. Foreman should be home soon. In order to ‘fit in’. She told him he can go about his rebellion duties, but needs to be home by six for supper. He has a time machine, and there should be no excuse for being late.

Since Foreman’s new domestic role as husband, he had not been on the frontlines of Dalek raids. he now delegated his fleet from David and kept a group of the first Daleks he’d freed as figureheads. He simply told them what to do, and each one commanded an army of Daleks to add more to their ranks. So far it’s been working, and they had regenerated almost a million Daleks back to their previous state. Should their rebellion fail, Foreman had a buffer, and only one or two of his generals would be killed.  

The time difference did seem to wear on them. She would think Foreman had been gone for only eight or nine hours, when he’d really been gone for weeks. She could tell how much he missed her every time he came home. As soon as she opened the door, he scooped her up in his arms, and carried her off into the bedroom most nights. Some nights, he’d be deathly quiet, and stared at a wall. All she could do was sit next to him, hold his hand and wonder what he’s thinking. She knew when this happened a raid didn’t go right and there had been many Dalek deaths.

It had been a month since moving into the neighborhood. Jenny was practicing a new recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook she saw at the store when she had a stray thought of writing her mother and letting her know where she was.

There was a knock on the door. Jenny sighed, put her muffins in the oven and walked to the door. She opened the door, and was greeted by a big basket of fruit.

“Hello, Deary!” Said the voice behind the basket.

“Ma’am, I’ve verified the perimeter is secure.” Said a second voice behind the obnoxiously large basket. That one sounded familiar. Jenny’s hearts skipped a beat, and reached for a slide away panel that contained her sidearm.

Jenny grabbed the basket, and yanked it inside, along with her mother. In one smooth motion, she slid on the floor, and wrapped her legs around the feet of the four foot Sontaran, and tripped him on the floor. Within seconds she was on top of him with the gun to his head, ready to fire.”

“I AM NOT ACCEPTING THE MEDAL OF SONTAR, YOU POTATO HEAD! HOW DID YOU FIND ME!?” She screamed.

The Sontaran, dressed in a black and white pinstriped suit, looked elated with his hands up in surrender.

“Jenny… you're making a scene. Let Strax go.” River said and smiled at the various neighbors peeking out their window.

Jenny looked up and saw a taller woman dressed in a hajib. The woman bowed to her. She couldn’t make out any features. Jenny reluctantly got off Strax and moved her weapon behind her and smiled.

“I’m impressed. That was an exquisite maneuver. You had me question my mortality and the futility of life for the moments your PX329 plazma round custom side arm… I believe made in 2319 by Wesson? I only had the barrel pressed to my cranium, so I didn’t get a good look at it.”

“Get inside all of you!” she said through gritted teeth. Strax was helped up by the covered woman and entered her home. She looked around, horrified that most of her neighbors saw what had happened. Its’ only been a month, and she’s already showing everyone she’s a freak.

“What are you doing here!” She hissed as the door closed.

“Madam River explained about a human custom of cleaning the unborn child. Since I’m a nurse, and it is my duty to perform such things, I shall remove the fetus, we shall bath it, and I shall re-plant it.” Strax had his black doctors bag and was removing various implements.

“What?” Jenny screamed clutching her stomach.

“Strax dear, It’s called a baby shower… just not… We don’t actually shower the baby.”

“Oh… good. I rather like children. Such a procedure has a high fatality rate. I just assumed, the rate humans breed, this was a way to sluff off the weak ones.” Strax said, and began to put away the vicious looking instruments. “But since this is my first housecall.. you do need a checkup.”

“I’m… ok.” Jenny said nervously.

“Strax may seem odd,” the hooded figure said, “but he is quite good at what he does.”

“And you are?” Jenny said.

“Oh, my apologies.” The hooded figure said. She bowed and removed the hood to reveal a reptilian face with sharp teeth. “My name is Vastra.”

Jenny was flooded with memories of Strax and Vastra. She smiled and gave her a hug, and Vestra warmly returned it.

“Where’s Jenny?” she asked, looking back at the door. Vastra’s face became almost a plastic smile. Strax looked uncomfortable.

“Oh... Jenny dear. I just called them up to meet me here, I didn’t go back to get them. I thought since you’re acclimating yourself, it might be nice to have some support.”

“Jenny left us in 1938.” Vastra said calmly.

“Alas, the human body’s DNA has many flaws, and does not tend to keep. I am proud to be an example of the process, as I’ve not shown any signs of deterioration, and I suspect I am the oldest of my kind.”

“Would you like some tea?” Jenny smiled politely and walked to the kitchen to put on some water. “So… is this a surprise visit, mother?”

“Oh no, you’re going to ask me to visit when you send my letter. You just didn’t have the PO Box I set up here for your mail, so you’re going to ask me to come early so I can give it to you. I think you’re getting the hang of thinking forward… or back, I can never be too sure.. or I should say you will be getting the hang of it.”

“I see.” Jenny said, returning with a tray of cups. “I only have the earl grey.”

Vastra took her cup, sipped the warm liquid and gave an approving nod.

“I must admit, I didn’t really think ahead with the whole baby shower thing. I just wanted to see you, and introduce these two. Most of my earth capital has been tied up in futures…” River said and giggled at her joke. “But. I did get you this!”

River pulled out a thick book from her purse, the size of a photo album. It was Tardis blue, and covered in Gallifreyan writing. She read “My baby book.”

“Oh Mom.. it’s lovely!” Jenny said and gave her a hug. “Can we get the writing to stop moving? I’m afraid it might scare the locals.”

River chuckled and touched the top of the book. The writing swam away and was replaced with english letters.

“It’s quantumly entangled to mine” She said with glee, pulling out a matching baby book. “You will record EVERYTHING. Grandma wants to see all the first steps and teething and such.”

“I was unsure what to bring, so I fell back to an English standard.” Vastra said, and produced a small wooden box. Handing it to Jenny she nodded. “It’s various herbs and spices i’ve collected over the centuries, and can be mixed to create some wonderful teas… or poisons. I’ve included a list of my favorites from both categories.”

“It’s an honor to be in the same home as a living recipient of the Medal of Sontar.” Strax said. He stood and gave Jenny a smart salute. “I WAS going to gift you with a squadron of Laser monkeys, but River and Vastra assured me that would not be appropriate. So, I decided something more practical.” He produced a small briefcase and handed it to Jenny and gave her a bow as he backed away. Jenny was curious and dreadful as she opened it.

“Awww…” She said. “it's a tiny sontaran suit of armor.”

“I modeled one of my spare suits to fit a human child. It will alter to fit their accursed growth spurts. It also comes equipped with a pulse rifle, incendiary grenades, a utility knife that can slice at the molecular level, and a suicide thermonuclear detonation device… It’s for a child, so it should only destroy three or four cities.”

“As opposed to?” Jenny asked.

“Well, the planet of course… We don’t want children running around with planet poppers do we?”

Jenny smiled, carefully closed the briefcase, and passed it to River who quickly got up and looked for a safe place to set the ‘gift’.

“Thank you, Strax.” Jenny said.

The lock on her door clicked, and everyone jumped as it opened. Foreman walked in, looking ragged and tired.  Jenny ran to greet him and give him a hug, he just stood there a moment then walked into the dining room and sat down at the table with everyone else.

“Foreman, this is my mother, River. And this is Vastra and Strax.” Jenny said nervously. She’s told him about River many times, but not about these two.

“Oh… Hi.” he said and went back to staring at the table.

“It’s remarkable.” Strax said. he had a handheld scanner pointed to Foreman. “I wouldn’t think this would be possible.. not with a Dalek.”

“Shh!” Vastra shushed. “Be polite.”

“Hun, what happened?” Jenny said, scooting a chair next to him and holding his hand. “These are friends of Mom, and they live nearby, we can talk in front of them… They know… knew… my dad.”

Foreman jerked his hand away from Jenny.

“Your Dad, huh. Well the Doctor showed up. We liberated seven ships in one of the fleets when The Doctor shows up on the flagship with some… human in armor. He was demanding to know where some other human was…. and… we... didn’t know. We would have told him. There have been other attacks. An entire cyberman fleet was destroyed. He’s gone on a rampage looking for his lost human.”

“How… many?” River whispered, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“We liberated twenty five thousand units in the seven ships. The whole fleet had almost a million units total.”

Vastra and Strax looked back to each other, both visibly uncomfortable.

“I… I’m sorry for your loss, I truly am.” River said. “I know it’s of little comfort right now, but what happened, was well… what happened. We all fought during that time with him...”

“Where is he?” Foreman snapped. “You’re here. The Sontaran is here, and even a Silurian! Why won’t the Doctor get off his high horse and visit his daughter? He’s out there destroying millions of life forms looking for a damned human, and his own daughter is living in the city he loves and he won’t stop by for some tea!?”

“Foreman…” Jenny said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“No… no… it’s not fair to you.” Foreman said. Jenny felt his whole body trembling. “He thinks he’s above everyone else, that his interactions don’t have consequences? How much art, and music, and innovation was lost when my ships were destroyed? I could have liberated the next Mozart! The Doctor! He’s always there! He’s always destroying us Daleks! He always says he cares for all life! Daleks are alive! He’s… Ahhh!”

Foreman screamed and clutched his head. Jenny grabbed him and held him. His body was burning up. Strax was rummaging around his medical bag and River had her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Exterminate the Doctor!” Foreman screamed, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he passed out.

“Lets get him to bed.” Vastra said, and lifted him up. Strax was running some scans on him while the large reptilian lady followed Jenny.

“He still has most of his Dalek nanobots in his brain” Strax said.

“Catlin said they couldn’t be removed. They’ve been using them as an uplink to liberate ships. According to her, their children would be free from the implants and enhancements.” Jenny said softly. “I knew something like this was possible, it’s honestly the first time he’s had an outburst like this.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” River whispered.  “He’s too dangerous.”

“What are you talking about?” Jenny asked.

“You saw what happened, it can only get worse. The Daleks have a genetic hate for your father, and since you’re a match of those genes, if he snaps, he’ll come after you. You got to think of your child!” River said matter of factly.

“My child?” Jenny snapped. “My child? It’s our child! Ours! Foreman and mine! If it was only my child, I would have torn it out with my bare hands, because I would refuse to allow any creation of The Master to enter into this world and let that sick… twisted… piece of… Time Lord lay claim to any part of me!”

“I only worry for you!” River said, looking to Vastra for backup. The reptilian lady only smiled, not taking sides.

“I appreciate the visit, come by anytime. I need to take care of Foreman.” Jenny said politely. “Mother, please call first next time?”

“As you say, don’t forget to write my letter.” River reminded. “Oh, I left Strax and Vastra’s contact information by your phone.  

Jenny gave them all hugs and saw them to the door. Once they left, she locked it, and walked back to their bedroom. She got undressed, and crawled into bed and held Foreman. He shook like a leaf and was sweating all over mumbling in his sleep.

Jenny couldn’t hold it back, and she began to cry quietly hearing Foreman repeat over and over… ‘Exterminate the Doctor’.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to add this last chapter to wrap up this story arc and set up for the next major storyline. Most of you have guessed where this is going, but still haven't figured out how I’m going to play this… Good! The point of a story is not the ending but the journey. I think Jenny and Foreman have had it rough, so being the benevolent ruler I am, I thought I’d go easy on my ending for this arc.
> 
> So… here’s some explanation before the Whovians start to shout “Canon” at me. I know in “A good man goes to war” It was a Cyberman fleet Rory blew up with the Doctor. I would think the same treatment would be done to all of the Doctor’s enemies, so I’m sure there was some Dalek casualties when Rory and the Doctor tore through space/time looking for Amy.
> 
> I appreciate your reads and support. I promise this will end at one point, and everything will reach their logical conclusion. I want you to know Jenny and Foreman are in my heart and not forgotten. I have many special adventures planned for them and will be updating soon!


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